Customer Service Roles

Most organizations have implicit or explicit requirements concerning which emotions employees express and how and when they express them. These requirements are seen as more central in jobs that entail high levels of interaction with customers, such as customer service roles. In such roles, the way in which employees manage their feelings and expressions can influence the effectiveness of their interactions with customers and thus play an important role in influencing customers to purchase a product, to remain loyal to the organization, or to tell others about the service given (e.g., Hochschild, 1983; Parkinson, 1991; Pugh, 2001; Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987, 1990; Sutton, 1991; Tsai, 2001).

When people regulate or manage their emotions in exchange for a wage, they are said to be undertaking emotional labor. However, while organizations may benefit from an employee's emotional labor, the consequences for the employee are less clear. Thus, although Hochschild (1983) indicated that emotional labor has generally negative consequences for employees, such as burnout and self-alienation, other researchers have also found positive, mixed, or contingent outcomes. For example, Zapf, Vogt, Seifert, Mertini, and Isic (1999) found that the requirement to express positive emotions was associated with feelings of personal accomplishment but also feelings of emotional exhaustion in employees. In addition, Schaubroeck and Jones (2000) found that emotional labor was more likely to be associated with symptoms of ill health among employees who identified less or were less involved with their job.

The consequences of emotional