Profiling as a Service Failure

Profiling occurs when negative stereotype assumptions based on personal characteristics (e.g., gender, age, race, or sexual orientation, among others) are applied to individuals, resulting in discrimination. Using a mixed-methods approach, this work explores how customers experience or anticipate profiling in a service setting, which constitutes a special type of service failure. Using a critical incident technique, study 1 establishes that customers feel stereotyped in retail service settings and that these profiling experiences constitute service failures that generate various emotions and coping behaviors, which are exacerbated when customers anticipate profiling will occur. Study 2 uses in-depth interviews to (1) advance a process framework for profiling as a service failure (PaSF), including pre-and post-coping behaviors as well as related emotions and proposed recovery solutions, (2) further develop and probe a typology of PaSF, and (3) develop characterizations of customer approach styles and responses to profiling. Finally, study 3 empirically tests our framework and appropriate service recovery strategies. Utilizing a stereotype threat theory lens, we broaden our understanding of and contribute to the literature on service failure and recovery, profiling, discrimination, and customer emotions, attributions, and vulnerability. Along with theoretical and managerial implications, we provide an extensive future research agenda to serve as a catalyst for further exploration.