Customer service-oriented behavior: Person and situational antecedents

Abstract

The personality antecedents of two types of customer service behavior (i.e., role-prescribed and extra-role) were studied in conjunction with the effects of experimentally manipulating participants' accountability. The results (n = 286) of a videotape-based questionnaire suggested differences between the personality antecedents of these two types of service behavior, suggesting that personality-based selection procedures should be consistent with the extent to which the organization's customer service philosophy promotes imaginative vs. scripted reactions to customer queries.