The Effect of Customer Service Encounters on Job Satisfaction and Emotional Exhaustion

An important feature of front-line service work is the participation of the customer in the production process. As a service recipient, the customer helps shape the way in which the work is performed through their specific needs and expectations. It is the customer whose requirements must be satisfied and whose orders must be met (Fuller and Smith, 1996). In some cases the customer can act as a co-producer while in other situations they can be enlisted by the organization jointly to supervise workers and help manage the labour process. This triangular relationship between the customer, the employee and management distinguishes interactive service work from industrial production where customers are external to the labour process and the dynamics of management control are more firmly located within the boundaries of the worker-management dyad (Lopez, 1996).