International Journal of Hospitality Management 95 (2021) 102882

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International Journal of Hospitality Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhm

How should I respond to a complaining customer? A model of

Cognitive-Emotive-Behavioral from the perspective of restaurant
service employees
Poh Theng Loo a, *, Catheryn Khoo-Lattimore b, Huey Chern Boo c
a
I-Shou University No. 1, Section, 1, Xuecheng Road, Dashu District, 84001, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
b
Griffith University, Department of Tourism, Sport & Hotel Management, Griffith Business School, 170, Kessels Road, Nathan, QLD, 4111, Australia
c
Singapore Institute of Technology, Design and Specialised Business Cluster, 10 Dover Drive, Singapore, 138683, Singapore

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Many studies on coping have been conducted in diverse industries but within the hospitality industry, studies on
Cognitive appraisals how employees cope with customer complaints have only just begun, despite the task being one of the most
Emotional elicitations significant stressors amongst service employees. The aim of this paper was to explore the cognitive appraisals,
Emotional coping behaviors
emotional elicitations, emotional coping behavior and complaint handling behavior of service employees. In-
Service employees
Table service restaurants
depth interviews were conducted with a total of 26 frontline restaurant employees. The results show that ser­
vice employees engaged in different cognitive appraisals and emotional reactions in response to different
customer complaints. Subsequently, they engaged in different emotional coping behaviors including both pos­
itive and negative of avoidance and approach. Theoretically, a model was developed to depict a holistic picture
of Cognitive-Emotive-Behavioral in a complaint-handling context. The findings might assist industry practi­
tioners to devise better complaint handling and coping strategies to enhance both customer and employee
satisfaction.

1. Introduction
Service recovery has been given significant amount of attention
within the hospitality management literature for its impact on customer
satisfaction (Hart et al., 1990; Johnston and Michel, 2008; McDougall
and Levesque, 1998; Smith and Bolton, 1998; Tsai and Su, 2009; Wirtz
and Mattila, 2004; Yoo et al., 2005) and organizational profit (Johnston
and Michel, 2008; Tax and Brown, 1998). The adverse impact of poor
complaint-handling by employees to service failures has been high­
lighted (Hart et al., 1990; McDougall and Levesque, 1998; Smith and
Bolton, 1998) and one-fifth of restaurant incidents contained evidences
of service employees not taking any recovery actions when necessary
(Hoffman et al., 1995).
Loo et al. (2013) also found that about one-fifth of the restaurant
customer complaints in their study were directly associated with inap­
propriate responses of employees in handling complaints. The success to
restore customer satisfaction is greatly dependent on how service em­
ployees act upon service failures. A vast majority of the previous work in
service recovery (e.g., Kim et al., 2010; Kwon and Jang, 2012;
Mccoll-Kennedy and Sparks, 2003; McDougall and Levesque, 1998) has
focused on the effectiveness of various recovery actions for different
kinds of failure complaints (i.e., outcome vs. process failures). These
studies have typically adopted the justice theory as the research
framework and have revealed the significant effect of distributive,
procedural, and interaction justices.
Many previous scholars (Bailey and McCollough, 2000; Bell and
Luddington, 2006; Goussinsky, 2012) have studied how service em­
ployees deal with various stressful situations (e.g., complaints and
customer aggression). For instance, Bell and Luddington (2006) exam­
ined how an individual’s disposition to perceived events (termed
affectivity) influences the negative impact of complaints on his/her
service commitment. Meanwhile, Goussinsky (2012) investigated the
moderating role of negative affectivity on the relationship between
customer aggression and three forms of emotion-focused coping strat­
egy. On the other hand, Bailey and McCollough (2000) demonstrated
the influence of emotional labor in service agents dealing with difficult
customer and employing various coping strategies. Although insightful,
these studies are piecemeal, and Lee and Madera (2019) recently

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: beatriceloo@isu.edu.tw (P.T. Loo), c.khoo-lattimore@griffith.edu.au (C. Khoo-Lattimore), hueychern.boo@singaporetech.edu.sg (H.C. Boo).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2021.102882
Received 23 December 2019; Received in revised form 18 January 2021; Accepted 2 February 2021
Available online 22 February 2021
0278-4319/© 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
P.T. Loo et al.
criticized the lack of study examining the potential interventions to help
service employees in engaging effective emotional labor strategies. Ac­
cording to the research in emotional labor, service employees are ex­
pected to display positive emotions despite having to handle difficult
situations where the complaining customers commonly express their
negative emotions or even body language (Bailey and McCollough,
2000; Kim, 2008; Pizam, 2004). This emotional dissonance could in turn
force employees to regulate their emotions and possibly behavior.
However, how service employees evaluate a complaining situation and
use their evaluations to regulate their emotions have not yet been
researched.
The current study investigated the topic from a different perspective.
We examined the moments from service employees receive customer
complaints to their service recovery actions (e.g., ignore, seek help from
superior, offer assistance). Considering the aforementioned lacking in
the literature, this study aims to identify the cognitive responses, the
elicited and regulated emotions, the differentiated coping mechanisms,
the coping strategies for complaint handling, as well as the in­
terrelationships among them. It intends to shed some light on (a) the
extent to which a customer’s words, behaviors and actions impact ser­
vice employees cognitively and emotionally, (b) how the felt emotions
impact the way they cope and handle complaints, and (c) the role of
emotional regulation in service employees coping with the complaining
situation.
2. Literature review
2.1. Employee’s complaint handling and emotional labor
When customers encounter problems, those who choose to complain
will do so directly to the service employees rather than to the head­
quarters or company management (Goodman, 1999). Past research has
documented that customers would evaluate the effectiveness of a
complaint handling case based on both what is done (such as compen­
sation) and how it is done (such as employee’s responses which include
empathy and responsiveness) (Bitner et al., 1990; Hart et al., 1990;
Levesque and McDougall, 2000; Smith et al., 1999). The effectiveness of
the handling actions, thus, can differ from one to another. To complicate
the situation, how service employees respond could not be programmed.
Service employees commonly experience much stress when they have to
handle customer complaints (Tantawy and Losekoot, 2001). Couple this
with the complaining customer’s own tension, the ensuing consequences
can vary. This is to say that employees could react in different ways and
take actions which deviate from actions that are desired by their orga­
nisations (Lee and Ok, 2014; Torres et al., 2017). The interaction with
angry and aggressive customers could affect both customers (Komunda
and Osarenkhoe, 2012; Lin et al., 2011) and employees, as well as the
service recovery outcomes (Goussinsky, 2012).
As the organizational representatives, service employees are never­
theless expected to perform emotional labor and display positive emo­
tions when dealing with difficult customers. These desired emotions
may be entirely different from the actual emotions felt at the time
(Ashforth and Humphrey, 1993; Kim and Han, 2009). Yet to date, we
know very little about how these requirements to ‘act’ while resolving
problems for others play out on the service employee’s personal
well-being and service delivery. The following sections review the
literature on cognitive appraisal, emotional elicitation and regulation to
establish the fundamental framework of the current study.
2.2. Cognitive appraisal and coping
Cognitive appraisal is “a process through which the person evaluates
whether a particular encounter with the environment is relevant to his
or her well-being, and if so, in what ways” (Folkman et al., 1986, p. 992).
This cognitive appraisal theory (CAT) has been applied to explain con­
sumer emotional responses and behavior (Nyer, 1997; Smith and
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International Journal of Hospitality Management 95 (2021) 102882
Ellsworth, 1985; Watson and Spence, 2007) and the antecedents of
emotions from tourism experience (Choi and Choi, 2019; Ma et al.,
2013). In marketing research, it has also been employed to investigate
customer loyalty (Choi and Choi, 2014; DeWitt et al., 2008) and satis­
faction (Schoefer, 2010; Wen and Chi, 2013). Its application in con­
sumer evaluation of service failure and recovery in the hospitality or
other service industry has also been widely reported (e.g., Su and Hsu,
2013; Surachartkumtonkun et al., 2013; Wen and Chi, 2013). Wen et al.
(2018) has extended the CAT framework to determine the impact of
individual cultural values on hotel guests’ positive emotions and eWOM
intention. Finally, the adoption of CAT in examining hospitality service
employee emotion, well-being, and work performance has also been
documented (e.g., Hewett et al., 2018; Hur et al., 2013; Kim et al.,
2012a,b; Lam and Chen, 2012).
According to the cognitive appraisal model (Lazarus, 1991), there
are two appraisal processes involved, namely primary and secondary. In
the primary appraisal process, an individual evaluates how critical the
situation is to his/her well-being (i.e., motivational relevance) and if
such situation is congruent with his/her goal (i.e., motivational
congruence) leading to three appraisal outcomes (i.e., positive, negative,
irrelevant). In the secondary appraisal process, an individual evaluates if
anything can be done to overcome the negative outcomes or to improve
the prospects by assessing the available resources and coping options.
Researchers have asserted that the two processes converge during
cognitive appraisal (Folkman et al., 1986; Tomaka et al., 1997). Thus, an
individual determines if he or she has anything at stake (e.g.,
self-esteem, well-being of him/herself or a loved one), and if so, whether
it is primarily threatening (containing the possibility of harm or loss) or
challenging (holding the possibility of mastery or benefit) based on the
appraisal of situational demands as within or beyond abilities or re­
sources for coping.
A threat is appraised when the situation is goal relevant and envi­
ronmental demands are considered as taxing or exceeding resources or
ability to cope (Balscovich and Tomaka, 1996). Unlike threat, a chal­
lenge appraisal arises when environmental demands are perceived as
within the person’s resources or ability to cope. Harm or loss refers to
damage that has happened such as sickness, injuries, damage on self or
social esteem or loss of a loved one.
Coping refers to an individual’s “constantly changing cognitive and
behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands
that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the person’s resources”
(Folkman et al., 1986 p. 993). Bailey and McCollough (2000) revealed
that the service agents in their study have engaged in emotional man­
agement, compensation and punishment, expediting, avoidance,
discourteousness, venting, and referral when managing difficult cus­
tomers. Law et al. (1995) identified talking to others, change strategy or
analyze the situation, working harder and taking the challenge, perform
other activity or think non-work thought, breathing, exercise or going
for a walk as the possible coping options. Reynold and Harris (2006)
have reported a myriad of hospitality frontline employee tactics, such as
talking to colleagues, physical release of emotion, individual isolation,
altering speech patterns, to cope with deviant customer behaviors.
In line with the approach-avoidance concept (Cohen and Lazarus,
1973; Goussinsky, 2013; Roth and Cohen, 1986), the various coping
options can be categorized into problem-focused and emotion-focused
strategies. The former refers to the ability of an individual to actively
altering the troubled person-environment relation, while the latter is the
ability of an individual to adjust to the situation or regulate stressful
emotions. Past research has revealed the conditions supporting the
strategy adoption. For example, Folkman et al. (1986) reported that
people used significantly less problem-focused option in encounters that
involved a loved one’s well-being than they did when this concern was
low. On the contrary, Sarnoff and Ziinbafdo (1961) demonstrated that
emotion-focused coping was preferred when people’s self-esteem may
be threatened by shame or embarrassment. Although not yet explored,
cognitive appraisal theory would be apt in the context of our current
P.T. Loo et al.
study, as service employees would start to evaluate if complaints are
putting them at risks (such as blames, vulgar words or humiliation) or
otherwise. Similarly, how their evaluation of these risks influences their
emotions or self-esteem at work is unexplored.
2.3. Emotional elicitation and regulation
The cognitive appraisal model suggests that the answers to the
questions in primary and secondary processes will elicit specific emo­
tions. For example, Smith and Lazarus (1993) explained that anger was
derived when an individual perceives the situation as motivationally
relevant, motivationally incongruent, and holds a person other than
himself accountable. On the other hand, anxiety is like anger except that
no one could clearly be held accountable. However, there remain many
questions in the cognitive appraisal model to be uncovered. For instance,
what emotion would be elicited with respect to the different kind of
dangerous outcomes (e.g., harm/loss, threat, challenge), what leads to
the elicitation of fear emotion, and if the different emotions would
trigger different complaint handling responses.
While employees could experience different types and levels of
negative emotions in the complaint-handling situation, particularly with
difficult and aggressive customers, they are not allowed to express their
actual emotions but to display emotions desired by their organizations
(Kim and Han, 2009; Morris, 2003). This is in agreement with the
concept of emotional labor suggested by Hochschild (1979, 1983, 1989,
1990). In order to achieve the desirable emotions, service employees
could perform three different types of emotional regulations (Ashforth
and Humphrey, 1993), namely surface acting, deep acting, and genuine
emotion. Surface acting refers to employees who perform fake emotions
and display required emotions and expressions without adjusting their
inner feelings. In contrast, deep acting requires the employees to
genuinely try to feel and adjust their internal feelings to the desired
emotions. Genuine emotion refers to the positive emotions naturally felt
by the employees without any acting. The literature, however, has not
ventured into how these forms of acting impact the way service em­
ployees handle complaints, nor incorporating emotional regulation into
cognitive appraisal model.
Although elicited emotions have been found to affect service per­
formance (Slåtten, 2010) and commitment to customer service (Bell and
Luddington, 2006), these studies are mainly interested in understanding
the outcomes of employees’ performance for the benefits of the cus­
tomers and organizations (e.g., what they do for the customers), rather
than the well-being of employees (how they feel) and how their mental
well-being affects the outcomes of their service performance (what they
think and do when they feel a particular emotion). For instance, Law
et al. (1995) did not attempt to understand how front-line tourist
attraction personnel feel about the various work stressors (e.g., organi­
zational management issues, arrogant people, business) which are likely
to affect their coping responses. In addition, the researchers had not
made any association between the coping responses with the types of
work stressor. Likewise, Bailey and McCollough (2000) did not examine
how service agents feel despite them dealing with one to two difficult
Fig. 1. A proposed Cognitive-Emotion-Behavior framework.
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International Journal of Hospitality Management 95 (2021) 102882
customers a day. Although the researchers revealed seven main coping
strategies, they did not explain why some employees would completely
remove themselves from the service encounter while some others would
compensate the negative emotions of difficult customers with positive
emotions. Could the emotion elicited from appraising the situation affect
the selection of coping action? Does the level of acting (surface vs. deep)
play a role?
In other words, past studies stopped short of explaining the rela­
tionship between an appraisal of a complaining situation and em­
ployees’ elicited emotions; the relationship between the elicited
emotions and employees’ ability to regulate their emotions to better
cope with their complainants; and the relationship between how they
cope emotionally and how they subsequently handle the complaints.
Fig. 1 illustrates the theoretical underpinnings for a cognitive-emotion-
behavior framework for complaint handling.
Based on the literature review, there is enough evidence to show that
how service employees behave during complaint handling determines
the success of service recovery, which will in turn benefit the organi­
zation financially. Studies have also demonstrated that service em­
ployees experience emotional dissonance (Julian, 2008), emotional
exhaustion (Choi and Choi, 2014; Kim et al., 2012a,b), or both (Karatepe
and Choubtarash, 2014) during complaint handling. There is research
documenting how service employees deal with complaints (Bell and
Luddington, 2006) and a separate of research that focuses on explicit
service recovery strategies (Lee, 2018; Mueller et al., 2003; Rashid et al.,
2016; Tsai and Su, 2009). What remains missing from the literature is an
empirical study that pieces together these variables so that we may
understand the process of how service employees appraise their own
emotions (including feelings and states of being) and how these ap­
praisals may lead to how they cope emotionally, as well as to how these
coping mechanisms influence their complaint handling behavior, such
as apologize, compensation, refund, discount, and correction (See in
Kelley et al., 1993; Levesque and McDougall, 2000; Kuo et al., 2011). A
comprehensive Understanding of this ‘coping-handling’ process is
important for two reasons. If we can understand the service employees’
internal emotional source emotional stress for specific complaint
handling behavior, then we may be able to intercept for a desirable
service recovery outcome at the early stage. Emotional stress refers to
the emotions activated in response to perceiving a stimulus as
threatening-feelings such as anxiety, irritation, frustration, lack of con­
trol, or hopelessness (McCraty, 2006, p. 5). For example, a new
employee does not know how to response to a complaining customer,
vulgar words said by complaining customers or physical push of
shoulder by complaining customers made them felt fearful, stressful,
being disrespectful, or humiliated. In addition, empowering service
employee to recognize that service recovery outcomes are a direct result
of their own emotions and how they can regulate these emotions would
be beneficial to their mental well-being and job satisfaction.
P.T. Loo et al.
3. Methodology
3.1. Sample
This study was conducted using an interpretive approach through
semi-structured in-depth interviews. The interview protocol included
questions related to cognitive appraisal (e.g., What was in your mind
when a customer complained to you?); elicited emotions (e.g., How did
you feel when a customer complained to you?); emotional regulation (e.
g., What did you do when you felt X? Were you pretending or was your
action genuine?); emotional coping behavior (e.g., What did you do to
help yourself feel better after the complaint?), and complaint handling
behavior (e.g., How did you resolve the complaint with the customer).
To differentiate emotional regulation from emotional coping behavior,
follow up question on if the action was pretentious or genuine and if it
became habitual or temporary.
In the current study, purposeful sampling and snowball sampling
techniques were employed. Participant recruitment was based on three
criteria. First, the service employees must be working in a table service
restaurant as this type of restaurant provides more elaborated service
delivery involving greater service interactions between the customers
and employees compared to other types of restaurants such as self-
service restaurants. As a result, the likelihood of service failures and
customer complaints were also higher. Second, the service employees
must possess at least one year of work experience in the table service
restaurants. This was because pilot interviews found that front line
service employees who had worked less than a year in a table service
restaurant were generally restricted from handling complaints due to
inadequate experience and thus had limited complaint handling stories
to share. Third, it was deemed logical to select employees who had
previously handled complaints. It is important to note that we were
more interested in how service employees appraise, regulate and cope
rather than trying to differentiate how each employee might differ in
their appraisal, regulation and coping behaviors, as moderated by their
working experiences and levels of positions. Hence, we did not restrict
our participant recruitment to service employees of a particular position
since customers can complain to any service employee regardless of
their positions. Nevertheless, given that service employees below su­
pervisory levels in Malaysia may lack of experience and knowledge to
handle and cope with complaints and situations, they are generally
asked to acknowledge customer complaints politely and proceed to
inform supervisors or managers as soon as possible.
3.2. Data collection and analysis procedure
Participants were recruited from a list of potential participants rec­
ommended by the personal contacts of the first author. All of the par­
ticipants were indeed working in table service restaurants in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia at the time the research was conducted. The in­
terviews lasted between one and two hours. They were recorded with
consent from the participants and verbatim transcribed subsequently for
further analysis. Almost all interviews were conducted in the English
language, except for two in Mandarin and one in Malay. As Malay is the
national language of all the authors and Chinese is the mother tongue of
two of the authors, the interviews were translated into English by one
author and then back-translated into the original language by another to
check and keep the original meaning of words and sentences. The first
and third authors have experience as a restaurant manager and
consultant for restaurant chains. This experience is instrumental during
data analysis, and in making recommendations for the restaurant
industry.
The thematic analysis method outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006)
was employed. There are six phases which encompass: (1) familiarizing
oneself with the data, (2) generating initial codes, (3) searching for
themes, (4) reviewing themes, (5) defining and naming themes, and (6)
producing a report. From the transcripts, the themes were first
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International Journal of Hospitality Management 95 (2021) 102882
categorized according to the research aims by identifying cognitive
appraisals, elicited emotions, emotional regulations, emotional coping
behavior, and complaint handling behavior. For example, sentences
such as “I think…” and “…was in my mind” were categorized as
cognition, while sentences such as “I feel…” and “…was my feeling”
were categorized as elicited emotions. Numerous rounds of transcript
review and data analysis were conducted. The first author analyzed the
data independently and all authors discussed to confirm on patterns
found from the data.
Efforts were also made at this stage to make sense of the in­
terrelationships between cognitive appraisals, elicited emotions,
emotional regulations, emotional coping behavior and complaint
handling behavior. It was intended that the findings section be reported
in line with Fig. 1. However, upon analysis, this was not possible due to
the complexity in the way service employees feel, cope and behave
during complaint handling. As a result, it was felt that the findings
section should begin with the presentation of the revised framework for
complaint handling.
3.3. Categorization of components in the framework
After a series of iterative process of searching and reviewing of
themes, a model incorporating the cognitions, emotions, and behaviors
found among the research participants when handling customer com­
plaints was developed. First, the outcomes of cognitive appraisal of a
customer complaint can be categorized into positive, negative, and
irrelevant. When a complaint was deemed as harm or threat, the
appraisal outcome was classified as negative. Although challenge is
regarded as dangerous following cognitive appraisal model, the partic­
ipants in the current study held a positive view about it. A study
confirmed that “cognitive appraisal of challenge as significant ante­
cedents of both positive emotion and beneficial perceptions of emotion”
(Skinner and Brewer, 2004, p. 283). For example, R23 shared that he
although he had bad experience in handling the same customer who
complained, he mentioned that he was persist in dealing each complaint
from the same customer until the customer stopped complaining.
“…Every time the same customer complained, I went and dealt with
each complaint until the customer stopped complaining…” (R23).
Second, the categorization of deep acting and surface acting is based
on the definitions introduced by Hoschild (1983). The following
expression by participant R7 clearly demonstrates the strenuous control
over service employee emotion that emotional laboring is well accepted:
“…even though I am patient, inside my heart I wanted [to] slap you (the
customer). Why can’t you totally understand as well because we are
working in the [Food & Beverage industry], we need to have patience, we
need to see that they will leave happily…” (R7)
Participant R7 had performed a surface acting by concealing or
suppressing the actual feeling (i.e., the urge to slap the customer because
of extreme anger) but displaying the desired emotion (i.e., being patient
symbolizes caring).
Third, the emotional coping behavior can be divided into positive
(negative) avoidance which is demonstrated by the attempt of service
employees to distancing from complaining customers in a way that is at
least not threatening, if not beneficial, (harmful) to the well-being of
themselves. The expression that participants would go for a smoke
represents a negative avoidance emotional coping behavior while
washing face signifies a positive avoidance. On the other hand, the
positive (negative) approach emotional coping behavior is exemplified
by actions taken by service employees to deal with the situation directly.
In other words, these employees generally engaged in some coping be­
haviors, such as reinforcing positive thoughts (unleash anger), during or
after handling the complaints. As a result, the benefits (harm) to the
well-being of themselves could only be evaluated after actions.
P.T. Loo et al. International Journal of Hospitality Management 95 (2021) 102882

4. Findings avoidance or approach. Avoidance refers to ways in which the service

4.1. Participants’ profiles
Table 1 summarizes the participants’ profiles. The 26 participants
aged between 20 and 41, with an average of 29 years old, were recruited
from 18 different table service restaurant brands. The proportion of fe­
male participants (n = 11) was slightly lower than its male counterpart
(n = 15). The participants have between 1–18 years working experience
in the Food and Beverage industry.
Almost all participants (n = 23) were Malaysians, while one was
Eurasian and two were Filipinos. Seven of them held positions of su­
pervisor and below, such as captain and service crew. Others were in
managerial positions. In this study, 70 % of the participants were in
managerial positions where they were required to hold the re­
sponsibility of handling customer complaints. The participant profile
was not surprising as the handling of customer complaint in Malaysia is
commonly the responsibility of those who hold at least a supervisory
position.
4.2. A revised cognitive-emotive-behavioral framework for complaint
handling
Based on the results of analysis, a revised cognitive-emotive-
behavioral (C-E-B) framework (Fig. 2) comprehensively incorporates
cognitive appraisal, elicited emotions, emotional regulations, emotional
coping behavior, and complaint handling behavior. In Fig. 2, the pri­
mary and secondary appraisal was not clearly distinguished.
Fig. 2 shows the process that service employees undergo when a
complaint is lodged by a customer. First, a service employee would
cognitively appraise a complaint as harm/threat or challenge. This
evaluation would result in elicited emotional responses, such as fear,
frustration or anger. Then, he or she may consider the desired emotions
to display and would regulate his or her emotions by performing surface
acting, deep acting or genuine emotions. The emotional dissonance
derived from the cognitive appraisal of the situation and the organiza­
tion expectation of desired emotions would require the employee to
perform emotional coping behavior. There are multiple emotional
coping behaviors which upon analysis, can be categorized as either
employee refrains from having to deal with the complaining customer
immediately after receiving customer complaints. Some avoidance be­
haviors found in this study include referring the complaining customer
to a colleague or deliberately putting themselves out of the customer’s
view. On the other hand, the service employee would be predisposed to
approach the complaining customer if the elicited emotions were posi­
tive or extremely negative. The approach behaviors include lashing out
in front of customers which is negative or not taking the complaints
personally which is positive. Depending on the way they cope with their
emotions, a service employee would utilize a particular complaint
handling behavior such as compensation, talking to the customer nicely,
taking care of customer needs, and even confronting the customer. Not
all respondents went through all the stages and the sequence described
in Fig. 2. Although these stages and their sequence are identified in this
study, other possible stages and/or sequences could exist and should be
explored in future studies.
4.2.1. The link between cognitive appraisal and complaint handling
behavior
One of the aims of this study was to explore the link between how
service employees evaluate their emotional responses to complaints and
how they actually handle the complaint. Fig. 3 identifies the cognitive
appraisals that result in positive and negative complaint handling
behaviors.
It can be seen that a positive cognitive appraisal results in a positive
service recovery outcome because the appraisal elicited positive emo­
tions. To be specific, the employees who viewed the complaint as a good
challenge would typically employ positive complaint handling behav­
iors such as listening to customers and offer compensations. On the
contrary, the employees who deemed a complaint as a harm or threat
ended up with unfavorable resolutions. Interestingly, this study revealed
that employees who appraised a complaining situation negatively and
felt negative emotions, though might not engage in any complaint
handling behavior themselves, would seek help from their superior or
colleague instead of leaving the customers unattended. For example, R2
expressed their negative emotion as exemplified below:

Table 1
Participants’ profiles.
Respondent Age Gender Ethnic Group Position Years in Current Company Restaurant Brand (RB)

R1 23 Female Chinese Cashier 1.5 RB 1

R2 25 Female Chinese Restaurant Manager 3 RB 2
R3 21 Female Chinese Service Crew 2 RB 3
R4 36 Female Indian Supervisor 1.5 RB 4
R5 28 Male Indian Senior Restaurant Manager 5 RB 4
R6 34 Male Others Assistant Restaurant Manager 4 RB 4
R7 25 Male Others Assistant Restaurant Manager 5 RB 5
R8 38 Male Indian Area Manager 16 RB 6
R9 30 Male Indian Supervisor 2 RB 7
R10 24 Male Malay Assistant Restaurant Manager 1.5 RB 8
R11 27 Female Chinese Restaurant Manager 8 RB 9
R12 24 Female Others Supervisor 1.5 RB 10
R13 24 Female Malay Cashier 6 RB 11
R14 41 Male Others Restaurant Manager 5 RB 12
R15 20 Male Chinese Captain 1 RB 13
R16 25 Female Chinese Restaurant Manager 3.5 RB 14
R17 26 Male Chinese Restaurant Manager 7 RB 14
R18 25 Male Indian Restaurant General Manager 6 RB 15
R19 28 Male Indian Restaurant General Manager 4 RB 16
R20 26 Male Chinese Restaurant General Manager 3 RB 14
R21 25 Female Chinese Restaurant Manager 1 RB 17
R22 35 Male Others Restaurant General Manager 2.5 RB 18
R23 30 Male Malay Restaurant General Manager 10 RB 7
R24 30 Female Malay Assistant Restaurant Manager 4 RB 14
R25 36 Female Malay Restaurant Manager 6 RB7
R26 40 Male Malay Restaurant General Manager 16 RB 7

5
P.T. Loo et al.
Fig. 2. The revised Cognitive-Emotive-Behavioral framework for complaint handling.
Fig. 3. An example (R2) of the link between positive and negative cognitive appraisal and complaint handling behavior.
“… [F]or me, I get angry very quickly. So, I’d rather let other people
handle complaints…I will send another manager to [handle the cus­
tomers], because the manager’s face is smiley and may [be able to
handle] them well.” (R2)
4.2.2. The link between cognitive appraisal and elicited emotions
Another interesting finding from this study is a negative cognitive
appraisal does not necessarily result in a negative elicited emotion. For
example, R19 has the courage to handle customer complaints even
under stressful situation when he became a manager:
“…He started to shout because how come you can do that to us… really
started to raise [their voices] until the entire restaurant customers were
looking at him…So, the moment I was going to handle it, it took time for
me, like how to make him calm down. Because he was like…even you will
be like, don’t know how to convince him or calm him down. So it took me
a minute to digest it and I was, like, listening to him. I was already giving
my eye contact which is I don’t want to disappoint him, I want to really
listen to him that…I pull him aside and [said], “If you don’t mind”, then
he came.”
R19’s audacity could be attributed to his past complain handling
experience and his role as a manager. The absence of relationship be­
tween negative cognitive appraisal and negative elicited emotion has
never been explored in past studies. The dotted box in Fig. 4 illustrates
this relationship within the complaint handling process.
Fig. 4. An example (R19) of the link between cognitive appraisal and elicited emotion.
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International Journal of Hospitality Management 95 (2021) 102882
4.2.3. The link between elicited emotions, emotion regulation and emotional
coping behavior
Analysis of the interview transcripts offered some insights into the
relationship between the elicited emotions and employees’ ability to
regulate their emotions to better cope with their complainants; and the
relationship between how they cope emotionally and how they subse­
quently handle the complaints. The service industry has generally been
content with employees’ complaint handling as long as the service
failure is recovered through cursory strategies such as apology and
compensation. This study reveals that when a complaint situation is
appraised as a positive challenge, the employee would have the courage,
display genuine positive emotion, and subsequently engage in positive
approach coping behaviors such as reminding themselves not to take
customer complaints personally as expressed by R23:
“…So I don’t take [it] personally [and] even though next time they come,
I will still treat them nicely…”
In another case whereby R4 who experienced constant complaints
from a regular customer, had described his feeling, unrelenting
emotional regulation, and emotional coping behavior as below:
“…the fellow [You] I was angry with … [I said in my heart…] you are a
regular guest and I know your attitude that, every time you like to find
fault. There is always something wrong. So, I will prepare myself mentally
for your attitude. I cannot change you. You are a guest you are a paying
guest. But I can change my attitude towards handling the guest’s
complaint… I said to him: “Hey sir welcome back, sir anything I can
P.T. Loo et al.
[place order] for you? Is it the same latte you usually order?” … five times
you came, five times you have made a complaint on different things, but
the sixth time you came, you didn’t make any complain, I was very happy.
Satisfied, I achieved something…” (R4)
Contrary to R4 who employed a positive approach behavior in
emotional coping (Fig. 5), R5 adopted a negative approach behavior by
lashing anger towards the customers, a display of genuine negative
emotion of anger (Fig. 6). In R5’s words:
“…he said abusive words like ’bastard’, ’all of you are idiots’ you know. I
don’t like people using that kind of words. I can’t take it. I told him if he
[is] not happy, he can leave now. He doesn’t need to pay. We will pay for
him… I just wanted to make it ugly, you know. Because he was so rude
and all that, so then he left….” (R5)
Besides the various approach emotional coping behaviors, this study
also revealed a variety of avoidance emotional coping behaviors (e.g.,
taking deep breath, drinking water, washing face, eating ice-cream)
employed by service employees. The expressions by participant R22
and R10 highlighted the importance of temporary distancing from the
strenuous situation in order to regulate emotion. Fig. 7 illustrates R22’s
complaint handling process.
“…the old guy tried to humiliate me. That’s why I feel irritated and
stressed.… but I consider they guy’s age. I consider you’re my guest …
That’s my job. So, I need to control… We are not supposed to show our
inner emotions with them. I show the normal emotions. I [take a] breath…
In [the] office there, [I take a] deep breath and drink some water. I need
to go back…” (R22)
“…I [will go to the toilet], I take about 10 min until I just [feel] refreshed
myself, wash my face, uh… [sit in front of the mirror]. Just take a break.”
(R10)
While the above behaviors may not be threatening to the well-being
of the employees, other avoidance emotional coping behaviors such as
smoking cigarette and vandalizing property are harmful. For example,
participants R20 and R25 expressed their negative coping behavior as
below:
“After I handle [complaints], I [am] still angry, I go out …have a smoke,
to calm myself down” (R20)
“I go behind [the kitchen], I kick [something], and all the vulgar words
come out of my mouth. Being alone there still all the vulgar words [come
out], [then I] drink water and then I feel eh, I’m cool…” (R25)
It is worthy to note that although some of the participants demon­
strated this coping behavior before they handle complaints, others
engaged the coping mechanisms after handling complaints. The latter
occurrence of coping behavior may be strongly attributed to the need for
emotional regulation, that is, the employees having to suppressed and
not display their felt emotions as demonstrated below:
“I said “Yes sir, how can I help you?” Suddenly, he pointed [and said]
“You don’t be so rude to me. I know your director, I know the owner.
What’s your name? I’ll make sure tomorrow you are in your director’s
office and you’ll be fired. I can make you lose everything one day
including your parent”……So, at that point of time, I felt like [I wanted to
scold] scolding the guest and tell them that they were the ones who made
Fig. 5. An example (R4) of the link between emotion elicitation, emotional regulation and emotional coping behavior (Positive Approach).
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International Journal of Hospitality Management 95 (2021) 102882
the mistakes but blamed me, but I couldn’t say it to their faces …I went
[into] the kitchen side, kicked the chiller, slammed [on] something… I
went out continue to serve… “Would you like to have another kids’
meal?” (R25)
Fig. 8 illustrates the relationship between R25’s elicited emotion,
emotional regulation and complaint handling behavior. The two-way
arrow between coping behavior and complaint handling indicates
when coping behavior may happen.
5. Discussion and conclusions
Customer complaint handling behavior is ubiquitous in services
marketing literature (Bergel and Brock, 2018; Berry et al., 2018;
Blodgett et al., 2015). This study is the first empirical attempt to un­
derstand how service employees appraise their own emotions (including
feelings and states of being) and how these appraisals may lead to how
they cope emotionally, to how these coping mechanisms in turn influ­
ence their service recovery actions.
5.1. Theoretical implications
The findings underscored the complex relationships between cogni­
tive appraisal and the multiple dimensions of emotional regulation, as
well as the multiple dimensions of emotional coping. While previous
studies have identified a range of complaint handling behaviors for
service recovery (Chan et al., 2016; Mccoll-Kennedy and Sparks, 2003;
Metehan and Zengin, 2011), this study developed a
cognitive-emotive-behavioral framework for complaint handling as
represented by Fig. 2. Specifically, the current study revealed the black
box processes from customer complain to employee complaint handling.
Through this model, we fill the knowledge gap by piecing together the
constructs and dimensions for effective complaint handling proposed by
previous scholars (Cambra-Fierro and Melero-Polo, 2017; Chen et al.,
2018; Nwokorie, 2016; Wen and Chi, 2013). The findings offer an
insight into how service recovery scholars can further test this empirical
model.
While cognitive appraisal studies have been extensively used to
explain customer emotional responses (Nyer, 1997; Smith and Ells­
worth, 1985; Watson and Spence, 2007), its application in relation to
employees’ emotions, especially in a restaurant context, is limited.
Contrary to the literature on coping behavior which identified bipolar
dimensions of avoidance versus approach (Folkman et al., 1986), this
study shows that the approach and avoidance may be positive or
negative depending on the benefit/harm exerted on one’s well-being.
Furthermore, this study expanded the approach and avoidance di­
mensions of Folkman et al. (1986) in the context of complaint handling
by revealing the association between emotional regulation choice
(acting or genuine emotion) and the coping behavior adopted by
employees.
In addition, this study is the first to uncover that emotional regula­
tion influences employees’ emotional coping behavior. Although ser­
vices companies expect their employees to display their desired positive
emotions all the time, this is indeed very challenging as some employees
need to take time to regulate their negative emotions. Importantly, the
findings in this study have substantiated that customer complaints do
affect employees’ emotions, their well-being and their subsequent
P.T. Loo et al.
Fig. 6. An example (R5) of the link between emotion elicitation, emotional regulation and emotional coping behavior (Negative Approach).
Fig. 7. An example (R22) of the link between emotion elicitation, emotional regulation and emotional coping behavior (Positive Avoidance).
Fig. 8. An example (R25) of the link between emotion elicitation, emotional regulation and emotional coping behavior (Negative Avoidance).
handling behavior in responding to complaining customers.
5.2. Practical implications
The findings have several implications for restaurateurs and service
employees themselves. For restaurant managers, understanding the
Cognitive-Emotive-Behavioral model for complaint handling provides
an opportunity not only to help their employees better handle com­
plaints but also to create better service recovery experiences for their
customers. The findings in this study suggest that there is benefit for
employees to temporarily remove themselves from the situation when
customers complain. For example, in Fig. 7, respondents performed
surface acting followed by drinking water. Many of the respondents in
this study felt immediate relief when they were able to go to the kitchen
for a drink, hide from the complaining customer, doing a different task
or smoking a cigarette. After engaging these rapid coping behaviors, the
respondents felt more poised to continue addressing the complaint and/
or serving other customers as opposed to feeling crippled for the rest of
their shifts. Therefore, managers should make it known to their em­
ployees that they have the liberty to employ quick emotional coping
behaviors when faced with difficult complaining customers.
The study has also provided a new understanding that not all em­
ployees perceive customer complaints as cognitively negative. Fig. 5
revealed that some of the employees cognitively appraised customer
complaints as a positive personal challenge. This empirical finding can
be incorporated into the customer relationship training programs. In
times of the coronavirus pandemic when trainings are conducted online,
the experiences and coping strategies of front-line restaurant employees
in this study could be re-enacted for a more authentic and engaging
training material. The implication for management training, therefore,
is to educate the frontline employees to view complaints as a positive
challenge for personal and professional development. This is because the
findings show that a complaint that is appraised positively will not only
lead to a smooth complaint handling process but also result in customer
relationship building. Whereas, for service employees themselves, the
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International Journal of Hospitality Management 95 (2021) 102882
findings show that employees who perform positive approach (Fig. 5)
and positive avoidance (Fig. 7) coping behaviors were able to handle the
complaints well. This in turn facilitated positive experiences and
instilled confidence in handling complaints, resulting in rapport build­
ing with customers. On the other hand, the findings indicate that the
well-being of employees (how they feel) affects the outcomes of their
complaint handling performance. It is therefore beneficial for employees
to understand that their own emotions during complaint handling and
how they regulate these emotions impact their mental well-being and
their confidence.
For restaurant customers, the findings suggest that they should un­
derstand that frontline employees cannot be expected to perform sus­
tained emotional labor. Therefore, companies should consider
empowering employees to be more genuine and ‘human’ in responding
to customer aggression. Losing a problematic customer could be more
beneficial to the company as compared to losing a good employee who is
dedicated to serving customers. The findings could be translated into a
customer education statement or signage to manage customer expecta­
tions of employees having to smile at all times.
6. Limitations and future research
Despite the contributions of this study, there are some limitations
which need to be addressed in future studies. Present work is only able to
reveal the cognition, emotion and behavior in complaint handling
among restaurant service employees. The recommendation is for future
studies to further investigate other service sectors like hotels, travel
agencies, airlines, telecommunication and health care, which could offer
different findings of coping behavior and complaint handling behavior
in different services contexts. Based on the above findings, we assume
that different levels of service and service environments could lead to
different levels of stress and subsequently employees might employ
different types of coping and complaint handling behaviors. These as­
sumptions could be tested in future empirical studies too.
The findings from this study have raised more questions than
P.T. Loo et al.
answers. Questions such as why service employees perform different
appraisal of similar complaint situations; what kind of appraisal will
elicit which emotion; how different emotional coping behaviors of em­
ployees will affect their complaint handling actions and the reasons for
them; why service employees react differently (in terms of cognitive
appraisal and emotion elicitation) to customer’s complaint behavior
have arisen as a result of this study and warrant further investigations.
Answers to these questions would help companies conduct effective
intervention to enable employees provide better complaint handling
behaviors.
This study only included service employees as a single source of data.
Future studies can include additional sources of data such as com­
plaining customers and company management in order to obtain a ho­
listic picture on the study topic. Moreover, longitudinal qualitative
studies on a deeper understanding about the handling-coping behavior
among service employees, as well as its impact on employees’ personal
and career development are recommended. In this study, the researchers
were only able to capture the actions from the stories shared by the
participants interviewed. Ethnographic studies, in which the researcher
carries out participant observations for a period of time, could provide
some more in-depth findings, in particular, the changes and transition
points that lead to successful or failure of complaint handling. A further
recommendation includes exploring how employee personality as a
moderator may influence how an employee makes a cognitive appraisal
and chooses a coping strategy. In addition, factors affecting the stages
and sequences undergone by employees deserved further attention.
Needless to say, the different restaurant operating periods and severity
of service failures may be an influencing factor in employee handling,
emotional regulations and coping behaviors and have yet to explore.
Acknowledgment
This study was supported by Taylor’s University, Malaysia under the
PhD fellowship scheme.
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