Symptoms of stress related to the characteristics of customer service in warehouse superstores

A study was carried out in a large chain of warehouse superstores specialized in office supplies. The stress symptoms of 91 sales clerks and 28 managers in six warehouse superstores were documented with the Karasek and Maslach questionnaires. The results show different stress symptoms in the two populations. In managers, stress could result from an overinvestment in the work, whereas for sales clerks, stress could lead to passive behavior and a reduction in self-esteem. Stress in sales clerks is related to customer service characteristics, which were studied through work observation, interviews and a daily journal. Results show that there are many customers to serve and that the time that can be allotted to each of these interventions is less than one minute. In more than a third of such interventions, sales clerks must serve more than one customer at a time. The sales clerks’ work is constantly interrupted. On average, they cannot work continuously on the same task more than 1.5 min. Sales clerks are also stressed by difficult customers and pressured to sell extended warranties. Solutions are proposed mainly to reduce interruptions which are thought to lead to mistakes, stress, degraded performance, and increased workload.