Customer incivility’s impacts on the telesales’ job performance and turnover intention

Abstract

The issue of customer incivility in the service industry has increasingly become a topic of significant interest due to its impact on employees. Telesales, in particular, frequently encounter such incivility from customers. The study employs both direct and indirect survey methods involving 420 telesales. The data is analyzed via Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Research findings indicate that customer incivility negatively affects telesales by leading to emotional exhaustion, reduced job performance, and higher turnover intention. However, the results did not find significant evidence for the moderating role of supervisor support in the relationship between customer incivility and emotional exhaustion experienced by telesales. The study provides valuable insights into testing the effects and moderating role of supervisor support in customer incivility context. It also offers practical implications for leadership in guiding and proposing strategies to decline telesales’ emotional exhaustion, thereby enhancing job performance and reducing turnover intentions.