Unraveling the link between customer incivility and proactive customer service performance: a moderated mediation model of proactive personality and emotional exhaustion

Purpose The existing body of research offers limited insight into the detrimental impacts of incivility phenomena on proactive customer service performance (PCSP) from the perspective of customer. Based on the stressor–strain–outcome (SSO) framework and conservation of resources (COR) theory, this paper examines how customer incivility influences PCSP, with a focus on emotional exhaustion as a mediator and proactive personality as a moderator. Methods Utilizing survey methodology, customer-contact employees in China were sampled with a time lag of three weeks in three waves. SPSS 27.0, the PROCESS macro (Model 4, Model 8 and Model 14) and AMOS 27.0 were utilized to analyze the data. Results The results showed that customer incivility had a positive impact on emotional exhaustion and reduced PCSP. Additionally, the indirect effect of customer incivility on PCSP through emotional exhaustion was significant, indicating a significant mediating effect. The results also revealed that proactive personality significantly moderated the association between customer incivility and emotional exhaustion and the moderated mediation index was also significant. Conclusions These findings indicate that proactive personality serves as a positive psychological resource, enhancing employees’ capacity to mitigate the adverse effects of customer incivility (stressor) and emotional exhaustion (strain) while enabling them to consistently engage in proactive service behaviors (outcome), thereby breaking the vicious path of the SSO framework.