In direct (face-to-face) contact services, the behavior of both customer and service provider impacts the observed quality of service. Furthermore, both academic and trade publications have published many articles highlighting the relationship between customer satisfaction, service quality, customer loyalty, and firm profitability. Although research also shows that employee satisfaction has significant impact on customer satisfaction, relatively little work has been done to assess employee satisfaction/dissatisfaction during a service encounter. In this study, using critical incident technique, we identify fourteen categories of unpleasant service encounters associated with clients' behavior. We link different types unpleasant encounters with service design and identify research questions, which needs further exploration.
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