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‘I’m not in Harvey Nichols…I’m not a personal shopper!’: Exploring the relevance of the triangular relationship and the performance of emotional labour: the case of the retail industry.

Jo Cartwright

Gail Hebson

Manchester Business School

Abstract

The article directly responds to Belanger and Edwards (2013) critique of the triangular relationship in front-line service work and explores the relevance of the competing positions on the customer.The study draws on the case of the retail industry including two case study organisations in the clothing industry and two in the electrical industry and each of which reflecting diverse market positions. It includes 37 semi-structured interviews with management and employees as well as eighteen customer shopping reports which is a method loosely based on the qualitative diary. The findings lend initial support to Belanger and Edwards (2013) because two of the cases can,to some extent,be explained by the management-employee dyad. However, in the other two cases it was necessary to draw on the customer perspective alongside the management-employee dyad in order to interpret the data correctly. In these cases the evidence suggests that employees and customers do not always act as management expect them to, and that there is a certain level of ‘randomness’ to worker-customer interactions; something Belanger and Edwards (2013) take issue with. Whilst the concept of triangular relations has been criticised, it is important to recognise that there have been no studies which include all three perspectives in the analysis and the aim of this article is to address this and test its relevance. We argue for the continued usage of characterisations of service work as ‘triangular’ between management, employees and customers. Such characterisation should not assume relationships between parties are ‘equilateral’ but rather recognise there is a certain extent of ‘randomness’ resulting from the unpredictability of both employees and customers in the interaction and how this shapes the daily experience of front-line work.

Introduction

The emotional labour debate has increasingly focused on the extent to which the customer can be conceptualised as the ‘unique’ feature of front-line service work (Korczynski, 2002: 2) compared with manufacturing industries. For some,the customer has agency in the front-line interaction and behave relatively autonomously from management (Bolton and Houlihan, 2005) whilst for others the autonomy of the customer is overstated and instead the focus is on the employment relationship and how management explains the nature of work (Belanger and Edwards, 2013).

The article will argue that it is only possible to dismiss the concept of triangular relationships if the customer has been brought into the analysis alongside management and employee perspectives. The problem is there has been no study which includes all three perspectives and we aim to address this limitation and test the relative strengths and weaknesses of each of the competing positions. This will be done on a case by case basis and it will be argued that assumptions about the role of the customer and its influence could lead to a dismissal of the triangular relationship, however, by introducing the customer into the methodology we will show how the same data can be interpreted differently. Because the customer was important as part of the interpretation of the findings across the case study retailers we argue for the continued relevance of the concept of triangular relations, and in a way that recognises that the relations between the actors is not ‘equilateral’ (Taylor and Bain, 2005: 264; Belanger and Edwards, 2013; 435).

Competing debates on the customer in front-line service work research

Korczynski’s (2013) recent article in Work, Employment and Society calls attention to the competing debates on the customer in service work research. He distinguishes between three competing positions and calls for researchers to be more explicit about identifying their position within the debate (2013: 6). The first are those which emphasise the material aspect of the labour process where management dictate the nature of work with minimal influence from the customer. For example, Houlihan (2002) distinguishes between ‘enabling’ and ‘coercive’ work environments in low discretion call centre work. Frenkel (2005) cautions against ‘bleak’ assessments of front-line service work and similarly distinguishes the nature of management control between mass service and mass customized work (p369). More recently, Belanger and Edwards (2013) have criticised the concept of triangular relationships and argue for the reinstatement of the employment relationship in explaining the nature of work. In particular, they take issue with the notion of the unpredictable or ‘random’ customer and instead argue the customer’s role is more ‘structurally defined’by management (2013: 435). The focus of this position is therefore how management can explain diversity in the nature of work and the role of the customer is interpreted on a minimal basis.

The second position identified by Korczynski (2013) considers the customer to have influence on particular elements of work organisation in front-line service work (2013: 2). Hochschild (1983) is identified as a key example of this position, where the imbalance of power in the worker-customer interaction is recognised as a particular aspect of the labour process in this context, which separates it from manufacturing industries. Others have identified the ways the customer may be used by management as part of control, including the use of mystery shoppers, ghost riders and customer satisfaction surveys as part of the performance agenda (Noon and Blyton, 2004; Kinnie et al, 2000: 974). The focus of this position is how the customer is used as part of the front-line labour process, but ultimately do not consider the customer to be autonomous from management per se.

Korczynski’s (2013) third position emphasises the broader influence of the customer who are considered unpredictable and therefore autonomous from management.Bolton and Houlihan (2005) put forward four types of customer service as a way of recognising the agency of the customer in the front-line labour process. They conclude that it is only when the customer is included into the analysis that we are able to highlight the contradictions between social and economic structures (Bolton and Houlihan, 2005: 699). Furthermore, Cranford and Miller (2013) use the case of the care industry to show how the nature of work is shaped by the social signals sent by care recipients thereby highlighting how aspects of their work are shaped by the customer and not just management. Scholars from this position therefore emphasise the broader role of the customer on the nature of work which are not defined by management structures.

The aim of this article is to test the relative strengths and weaknesses of each of these positions and it is therefore necessary that we include all three perspectives into the analysis in order to understand how the customer may or may not disrupt what is expected according to complex negotiations between the three actors in that particular relationship. The relationships between the three actors may therefore be defined as ‘triangular’ since all three have a role to play in shaping the nature of work and not that the power relations between are ‘equilateral’.The article will follow in two ways; firstly it will show how management and employee perspectives support the view that the worker-customer interaction is embedded in particular employment relationships and that these shape the interaction. In this sense the customer and employee and management all act as one would expect them two. The second part of the article will explore cases where these assumptions are disrupted because of the unpredictability, or ‘randomness’, of the customer and employee.

Research design

The study was carried out in 2012/13 in the North West of England as part of a broader PhD research project. It draws on the case of the retail industry and combines management, employee and customer perspectives across four case study organisations. The aim was to build on the limitations of the service work literature where the customer had been explored but often in passive terms (Korczynski, 2009) and in disconnect from the broader influence of the employment relationship (Belanger and Edwards, 2013). By combining all three perspectives, the aim of the research was to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of each of the opposing positions in service work research including how management and the customer shape the performance of emotional labour across diverse retail organisations.

37 semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers and employees across the four case study organisations and eighteen customer shopping reports were also included in the analysis. Qualitative research methods were used as part of an interpretive methodology and semi-structured interviews were employed in particular because of the close involvement with the social actors which helps provide rich and in-depth insight and the ability of the researcher to probe for more information. Customer shopping reports are a research technique loosely based on the qualitative diary method which enabled participants to report their shopping experiences on each of the case study retailers, but not over time which justifies the change in terminology for the research technique chosen. This research technique had the advantage of creating a simulated sample of customers which helped overcome the issue of access to ‘real’ customers and also the ethical issues related to potential management ownership of the data.

Initially, a pilot study was conducted which enabled the researcher to build relationships with management gatekeepers and facilitate access for the main study. There were significant challenges getting access at this point, and only eight managers agreed to take part in this (a one-hour interview) out of approximately 30 retailers targeted. In particular, retail organisations operating at the extreme ends of the market were most difficult as well as larger, well-established retail organisations with presumably clear policies restricting management autonomy to participate in this type of research. After the pilot study, four retail organisations were picked because of ongoing relationships with management gatekeepers (and the likelihood of agreeing access) but more specifically because of the requirements of the research including systematic comparisons between the case study retailers; for example, it was essential to choose firms with systematic contrasts in terms of market position and product markets to be comparable. But also the implications of the geographical location of the case study retailers was important to bear in mind because of the later process of data collection for the customer group including the relative time and expense of travelling between the participant retail organisations.

Research incentives were used to encourage attrition and a £20 high street gift voucher was used to reimburse management and employees for their time taking part in the research, often using breaks or their lunch hour. £30 high street gift vouchers were given to customers taking part in the research because of the costs associated with travelling between the four retailers (up to fifteen miles in distance) and the time constraints associated with participation which was estimated to take approximately two to three hours (travel time, shopping and writing up the report as well as ongoing communication with the researcher). Clearly there are issues with giving participants research incentives including the potential of shaping participant behaviour and encouraging particular groups of people to participate including the vulnerable (Simmons and Wilmot, 2004: 8). However, there were anticipated problems of attrition particularly in the customer group due to the time constraints and costs associated with participation and therefore it was necessary to use research incentives and at a monetary value high enough to cover these costs yet not be regarded as coercive in nature.

There are limitations to the research which include the subjective nature of the data and issues of replication. The findings are representative of the perspectives of managers and employees within a particular case study store at a single point in time and clearly if the research was conducted at a different point in time or within a different store the findings might be different. However, centralised HR documentation was included into the analysis such as scripts, guidelines, performance measures, recruitment policies and so forth which helps strengthen the transferability of the findings.

Another potential limitation is associated with the recruitment and sampling techniques for the customer group. Self-selection was used to initially target particular demographic groups and snowball sampling was used latterly to improve the randomness of the sample. Clearly there are advantages and disadvantages to both of these recruitment techniques; self-selection suffers the limitation of targeting participants from within the researchers social network and snowball sampling limits the ability to make the sample representative of the demographic groups of the wider population. Therefore whilst there have been attempts to make the sample representative and also random, the two were often at odds with one another in the methods of recruitment and there are therefore limitations to the customer sample and its representativeness of the wider population.

A key issue with the customer sample was the ‘simulated’ nature of this group where participants were recruited outside of the retail organisational context and so the customer sample does not represent the typical customer who necessarily shops in these retailers and this may potentially shape the findings. Future research might look into other possible research techniques for the customer sample including dyadic interviews at the point of interaction or focus groups with ‘real’ customers but issues with research access and ethics render this problematic and therefore a potential solution to this might be to develop long-term relationships with management gatekeepers.

Background to the case study retailers

The research included four case study organisations in the context of retail industry; two in the clothing industry (Hi Fashion Co and Fast Fashion Co) and two in the electrical industry (Spec Tech Co and Budget Tech Co) and each of which reflecting diverse market positions (See Table 1). Spec Tech Co is an electronics retailer which is known for a complex and diverse range of products sold. It targets the upper to middle value customer segments but is not focusing on a quality enhancement competitive strategy per se (See Table 1). Nine interviews were conducted in this store, and employees tended to be male, young with no dependants and there was a mixture of full-time and part-time contracts. The nature of work relations tends to be ‘enabling’ (Houlihan, 2002) in the sense that employees are allowed relative autonomy in the employee-customer interaction; for example, there are no scripts or guidelines and management are said to take a soft approach to performance management which recognises an informal team-working structure where there are no time constraints with the customer and employees are not expected to know about all products and can therefore ‘pass on’ queries to other more knowledgeable colleagues.

Budget Tech Co is an electronics retailer which recently went into administration and targeted lower value customer segments (See Table 1). Nine interviews were conducted and employees tended to be male, aged 35 and over, the primary earners of the household and employed on full-time contracts. The nature of work relations tends to be ‘coercive’ in nature (Houlihan, 2002) in the sense that employees are constrained by performance management; for example, there are scripts and sales targets which encourage employees to be instrumental in the performance of emotional labour including being conscious of the time spent with customers in relation to the commission they are likely to earn from the sale. There are strict performance measures and discipline including the threat of dismissal for underperformance.

Hi Fashion Co is a clothing retailer which is known for selling luxury animal fabrics (e.g. wool, cashmere etc.) and targets the upper to premium value customer segments (See Table 1). Nine interviews were conducted and employees tended to be female, aged 45 and over, married with dependants as well as being the secondary earner in the household, and employed on a part-time contract. The nature of work relations tends to be ‘coercive’ in nature (Houlihan, 2002) with strict customer guidelines to which constrains employees in the performance of emotional labour; for example they are expected to approach all customers within 20 seconds of entering the store and develop a rapport with them. Furthermore, there are sales targets which measure the performance of employees, but this is less extreme than Budget Tech Co in the sense that there is no discipline for underperformance.

Fast Fashion Co is a clothing retailer selling fashionable clothing at low prices and therefore targets the lower middle value customer segments (See Table 1). Ten interviews were conducted and employees tended to be young, female, and single with no dependants, the secondary earner in the household and employed on a part-time basis. The nature of work relations tends to be ‘enabling’ (Houlihan, 2002) in the sense that employees are not constrained in the performance of emotional labour by scripts, guidelines or sales targets.