Customer-to-Customer Misbehavior Magnitude: Dimensions and Typology

From retail and transport to hospitality and live events, customer-to-customer (C2C) interactions are integral to many service experiences. However, C2C interactions are not always positive, and customers regularly become targets of other customers’ misbehavior. Although such C2C misbehavior has always been a challenge for firms, it has escalated since the COVID-19 pandemic, with incidents becoming not only more frequent but also more intense and severe. However, it remains unknown how customers assess the magnitude of C2C misbehavior. Four studies, including 62 repertory grid interviews using scenario-based and diary-based approaches with international participants from Germany and the United Kingdom, reveal six dimensions that underlie customers’ magnitude perceptions: three intensity-related dimensions that assess the magnitude of the misbehavior itself and three severity-related dimensions that examine the magnitude of the misbehavior’s impact on other customers. Several sorting studies with 99 U.S. participants support the robustness, generalizability, distinctiveness, and hierarchical structure of our identified magnitude dimensions. By uncovering the facets that underlie customers’ evaluations of an incident’s perceived magnitude, our study provides an empirically grounded conceptualization and typology of C2C misbehavior. Managerially, this research enables firms, communities, and governments to monitor and categorize misbehavior incidents more effectively and to develop more targeted mitigation strategies.