The growth of service work has introduced the customer as a third party to the employment relationship. Yet dominant images of customer relations portray docile service workers offering de-personalized care to sometimes aggressive but otherwise not much more agential customers. This paper seeks to bring humanity back into an analysis of customer service, and to reinterpret customer service interaction as a human relationship. Using labour process analysis and data from call-centre workers and their customers, we rerepresent customers as many-faceted, complex and sophisticated social actors and introduce a new conceptual framework of the roles customers play: as mythical sovereigns, functional transactants and moral agents, thereby offering a more accurate representation of customer service and the role of the actors involved in it.
Archer, M. (2000) Being Human: The Problem of Agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
2.
Albrecht, K.A. and Zemke, R. (2002) Service America! Doing Business in the New Economy. Boston: McGraw Hill .
3.
Bauman, Z. (1992) Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge .
4.
Bell, D. (1976) The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. London: Heinemann .
5.
Bolton, S. (2005) Emotion Management in the Workplace. London: Palgrave .
6.
Bowen, D. and Lawler, E. (1992) ‘The Empowerment of Service Workers’ , Sloan Management Review, Spring: 31-39 .
7.
Callaghan, G. and Thompson, P. (2001) ‘Edwards Revisited: Technical Control and Call Centres’ , Economic and Industrial Democracy22(1): 13-57 .
8.
Callaghan, G. and Thompson, P. (2002) ‘We Recruit Attitude: The Selection and Shaping of Routine Call Centre Labour’ , Journal of Management Studies39(2): 233-253 .
9.
Chell, E. (1998) ‘Critical Incident Technique’, in G. Symon and C. Cassell (eds) Qualitative Methods and Analysis in Organizational Research: A Practical Guide, pp. 51-72. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage .
10.
Cremin, C.S. (2003) ‘Self-starters, Can-doers and Mobile Phoneys: Situations Vacant Column and the Personality Culture in Employment’ , Sociological Review51(1): 109-128 .
11.
Czarniawska, B. (1998) The Narrative Study of Organizations. Newbury Park, CA: Sage .
12.
Dalton, M. (1959) Men Who Manage: Fusions of Feeling in Theory and Administration. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
13.
Deery, S. , Iverson, R. and Walsh, J. (2002) ‘Work Relationships in Telephone Call Centres: Understanding Emotional Exhaustion and Employee Withdrawal’ , Journal of Management Studies39(4): 471-496 .
14.
du Gay, P. (1996) Consumption and Identity at Work. London: Sage .
15.
du Gay, P. and Salaman, G. (1992) ‘The Cult(ure) of the Customer’ , Journal of Management Studies29: 615-633 .
16.
Frenkel, S.J. , Tam, M. , Korczynski, M. and Shire, K. (1998) ‘Beyond Bureaucracy? Work Organization in Call Centres’ , International Journal of Human Resource Management9(6): 957-979 .
17.
Frenkel, S. , Korczynski, M. , Shire, K. and Tam, M. (1999) On the Front Line: Organization of Work in the Information Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press .
18.
Foucault, M. (1988) ‘Technologies of the Self’, in L. Martin , H. Gutman and P. H. Hutton (eds) Technologies of the Self, pp. 16-49. London: Tavistock .
19.
Fuller, L. and Smith, V. (1991) ‘Consumers Reports: Management by Customers in a Changing Economy’ , Work, Employment and Society5(1): 1-16 .
20.
Gabriel, Y. and Lang, T. (1995) The Unmanagable Consumer. London: Sage .
21.
Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin .
22.
Heskett, J. , Sasser, W. and Schlesinger, L. (1997) The Service Profit Chain. New York: The Free Press .
23.
Hochschild, A. (1983) The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press .
24.
Holman, D. (2003) ‘Phoning in Sick? An Overview of Employee Stress in Call Centres’ , Leadership and Organization Development Journal24(3): 123-130 .
25.
Hopfl, H. (2002) ‘Playing the Part: Reflections of Aspects of Mere Performance in the Customer-Client Relationship’ , Journal of Management Studies39(2): 255-267 .
26.
Houlihan, M. (2002) ‘Tensions and Variations in Call Centre Management Strategies’ , Human Resource Management Journal12(4): 67-85 .
27.
Jackall, R. (1988) Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers. New York: Oxford University Press .
28.
Kinnie, N. , Hutchinson, S. and Purcell, J. (2000) ‘Fun and Surveillance: The Paradox of High Commitment Management in Call Centres’ , International Journal of Human Resource Management11(5): 967-985 .
29.
Korczynski, M. (2002) Human Resource Management in Service Work. London: Palgrave .
30.
Korczynski, M. (2003) ‘Communities of Coping: Collective Emotional Labour in Service Work’ , Organization10(1): 55-79 .
31.
Korczynski. M. and Ott, U. (2004) ‘When Production and Consumption Meet: Cultural Contradictions and the Enchanting Myth of Customer Sovereignty’ , Journal of Management Studies41(4): 575-599 .
32.
Kunda, G. (1992) Engineering Culture: Control and Commitment in a High-Tech Organization. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press .
33.
Lankshear, G. , Cook, P. , Mason, D. , Coates, S. and Button, G. (2001) ‘Call Centre Employees’ Responses to Electronic Monitoring: Some Research Findings’ , Work, Employment and Society15(3): 595-605 .
34.
Leidner, R. (1993) Fast Food, Fast Talk: Service Work and the Routinization of Everyday Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press .
35.
Leidner, R. (1996) ‘Rethinking Questions of Control: Lessons from McDonald’s’, in C. Macdonald and C. Sirianni (eds) Working in the Service Society, pp. 172-193. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press .
36.
Macdonald, C. and Sirianni, C. (eds) (1996) Working in the Service Society. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press .
Miller, P. and Rose, N. (1990) ‘Governing Economic Life’ , Economy and Society19(1): 1-31 .
39.
Peters, T. (1987) Thriving on Chaos. London: Macmillan .
40.
Peters, T. (2003) Re-imagine: Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age. London: Dorling Kindersley .
41.
Pitt, L. , Foreman, S. and Bromfield, D. (1995) ‘Organizational Commitment and Service Delivery: Evidence from an Industrial Setting in the UK’ , The International Journal of Human Resource Management6(1): 369-389 .
42.
Ritzer, G. and Stillman, T. (2001) ‘From Person-to-System Oriented Service’, in A. Sturdy , I. Grugulis and H. Willmott (eds) Customer Service, pp. 102-116. London: Palgrave .
43.
Ritzer, G. (1996) The McDonaldization of Society (Revised Edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press .
44.
Rose, N. (1999) Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self. London: Free Association Books .
45.
Rochberg-Halton, E. (1982) ‘Situation, Structure, and the Context of Meaning’, in K. Plummer (ed.) Symbolic Interactionism Volume II: Contemporary Issues, pp. 455-476. Essex: Edward Elgar Ltd.
46.
Rosenthal, P. , Peccei, R. and Hill, S. (2001) ‘Academic Discourses of the Customer’, in A. Sturdy , I. Grugulis and H. Willmott (eds) Customer Service, pp. 18-37. London: Palgrave .
47.
Sayer, A. (2005, forthcoming) ‘Approaching Moral Economy’, in N. Stehr , C. Henning and B. Weiler (eds) The Moralization of the Markets. New Jersey: Transaction Books .
48.
Sennett, R. (1998) The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. New York: Norton & Company .
49.
Sotirin, P. and Gottfried, H. (1999) ‘The Ambivalent Dynamics of Secretarial Bitching: Control, Resistance, and the Construction of Identity’ , Organization6(1): 57-80 .
50.
Sturdy, A. (1998) ‘Customer Care in a Consumer Society: Smiling and Sometimes Meaning It?’ , Organization5(1): 27-53 .
51.
Sturdy, A. (2000) ‘Training in Service - Importing and Imparting Customer Service Culture as an Interactive Process’ , International Journal of Human Resource Management11(6): 1082-1103 .
52.
Taylor, S. (1998) ‘Emotional Labour and the New Workplace’, in P. Thompson and C. Warhurst (eds) Workplaces of the Future, pp. 84-103. Basingstoke: Macmillan .
53.
Taylor, P. and Bain, P. (1999) ‘An Assembly Line in the Head: The Call Centre Labour Process’ , Industrial Relations Journal30(2): 101-117 .
54.
Taylor, P. and Bain, P. (2004) ‘Humour and Subversion in Two Call Centres’, in S. Fleetwood and S. Ackroyd (eds) Critical Realist Applications in Organization and Management Studies, pp. 274-297. London: Routledge .
55.
Taylor, P. , Mulvey, G. , Hyman, J. and Bain, P. (2002) ‘Work Organization, Control and the Experience of Work in Call Centres’ , Work, Employment and Society16(1): 133-150 .
56.
Thompson, J.C. (1997) ‘Interpreting Consumers: A Hermeneutical Framework for Deriving Marketing Insights from the Texts of Consumers’ Stories’ , Journal of Marketing Research34(4): 438-455 .
57.
Thompson, P. (2003) ‘Disconnected Capitalism: Or Why Employers Can’t Keep their Side of the Bargain’ , Work, Employment and Society17(2): 359-378 .
58.
Van Maanen, J. (1988) Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press .
59.
Watson, T. (1994) In Search of Management: Chaos, Culture and Control in Managerial Life. London: Routledge .
60.
Wouters, C. (1989) ‘The Sociology of Emotions and Flight Attendants: Hochschild’s Managed Heart’ , Theory, Culture & Society6(1): 95-123 .
61.
Wray-Bliss, E. (2001) ‘Representing Customer Service: Telephones and Texts’, in A. Sturdy , I. Grugulis and H. Willmott (eds) Customer Service, pp. 38-59. London: Palgrave .
