Fuelling positive service encounters : the customer's contribution

Positive service encounters can occur when customers and service employees direct their respective efforts towards achieving a jointly favourable outcome. This paper argues that customers can play a significant role in creating a positive and gratifying service encounter for both themselves, the service employees, and the rest of the customers involved in the service interaction. This can be achieved when customers voluntarily engage in beneficial behaviours towards service employees, which in turn influence the service employees' subsequent behavioural response. This paper demonstrates how employee extra-role behaviour is mediated by the beneficial and resourceful impact resulting from customer positive actions