Information technology customer aggression: The importance of an organizational climate of support

Information technology personnel are often ill prepared to react in a positive fashion to the aggressive communications from their customers, the users. Being able to regulate the emotions spiked by aggressive customer behavior is important to the long term health and retention of IT employees. Surface acting responses, the ability to display false emotions to mask strong emotions, is common, but not better for the long term health of the individual or organization. Deep acting responses, where emotional responses are modified to encourage expected behavior, are the better response and can be promoted with an organizational climate of support. A model derived from emotion response theory demonstrates these relationships hold for IT employees, who tend to be more introverted than most employees and often react differently to aggressive communication from customers. The model is verified with a sample of IT employees in Taiwan companies. Organizations should provide a climate of support for IT personnel and train them on how to respond appropriately to customer aggression through emotion regulation strategies in a direction that promotes better relationships.