Previous research has conceptualized and modeled customer orientation (CO) in one of two ways: as a psychological phenomenon antecedent to critical job states (i.e., stress and engagement) or as frontline employee behaviors that are caused by these same job states. Building on meta-analytic data, this study finds greater support for the causal relationships implied by a psychological construal of the construct and reveals that CO influences frontline employees' job outcomes through its effects on stress and engagement. Moderation analyses also indicate that CO's influence on model variables is stronger when frontline employees' customer workloads increase and is weaker as the need for customer persuasion increases. These findings contradict widely held assumptions rooted in a behavioral view of CO-namely, that CO is a consequence of job states, a proximate determinant of job outcomes, and most beneficial when ample opportunity for customer engagement exists. Overall, the results support a broadened perspective that recognizes that CO improves job outcomes because it enhances frontline employees' psychological welfare in addition to being good for business. These findings suggest that managers should consider CO an important criterion in frontline employee decisions, recognize CO as beneficial when limited opportunity for customer engagement exists, and avoid efforts to curtail CO's costs at the frontline employee level.

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This empirical study evaluated the moderating effects of unit customer orientation (CO) climate and climate strength on the relationship between service workers' level of CO and their performance of customer-oriented behaviors (COBs). In addition, the study examined whether aggregate COB performance influences unit profitability. Building on multisource, multilevel data, the study's results suggest that the influence of employee CO on employee COB performance is positive when the unit's CO climate is relatively high and that the constructs are unrelated when unit CO climate is relatively low. In addition, the data reveal that unit COB performance influences unit profitability by enhancing revenues without a concomitant increase in costs. The study's results underscore the theoretical importance of considering cross-level influencers of employee-level relationships and suggest that managers should focus on creating a climate that is supportive of COBs if their units are to profit from the recruitment, hiring, and retention of customer-oriented employees.

Customer prioritization strategies, which focus a firm's efforts on its most important customers, are expected to improve account profitability. Anecdotal evidence suggests, however, that such strategies may also undermine account profitability by inducing customers to become overly demanding. Building on social exchange theory, this research evaluates these competing perspectives across two field studies and finds that prioritization is best understood as a double-edged sword. Specifically, the results reveal that prioritization efforts initiate both a gratitude-driven process, which enhances sales and profit, and an entitlement-driven process, which increases service costs and reduces profit. Importantly, the findings indicate that prioritization tactics differ in the extent to which they trigger these competing processes and thus in their ability to influence account profitability. Finally, the results also reveal that critical moderators (competitive intensity and prioritization transparency) determine the extent to which the entitlement-driven process undermines the gratitude-driven process. For managers, the findings suggest that both the tactics employed and moderating conditions determine whether prioritization has a positive, negative, or negligible effect on prioritized accounts' profitability.

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