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For the moment management sciences have taken little interest in issues relating to deviant customer behaviour. In the literature, the terms “Misbehaviour”, “jay customers”, “aberrant behaviour”, “dysfunctional behaviour” or “bad behaviour” identify what we describe here under the generic term “Deviant Behaviour” (Moschis & Cox, 1989; Fullerton & Punj, 1997; Harris & Reynolds, 2003). The of deviant behaviour describes customer behaviour that does not correspond to behaviour defined as normal by the organisation, and with regard to which it has developed its product offer and organised its system of production/ distribution/after-sales service.
Research into consumer behaviour has begun to question the idyllic portrait of the customer (rational, honest, competent), and has even started to point out the consequences of certain types of behaviour and to consider techniques to prevent avert such scheming (Cox et al., 1990; Fullerton & Punj, 1993; 2004; Harris & Reynolds, 2004). The importance of coproduction in services has, moreover, led services management to study ways to modify customer behaviour in more favourable directions. Finally, in B2B, the point of view of the client looking to control his suppliers’ behaviour has been abandoned in favour of wider research into the control that each of the actors exercises on the others.
This work on customer deviance leaves many questions unanswered, notably concerning the organisational dimension of customer management.1 The purpose of this conference is to highlight both the operational management of deviant behaviour and the point of view of actors within the organisation concerning this behaviour. What do the organisation and its members do with the notion of deviance and the actual behaviour of customers? What means do the members of the organisation have to pinpoint and describe this behaviour? How is this behaviour worked on by the organisation’s members? What management tools allow it to be anticipated and regulated? What resources do actors within organisations use when faced with this type of behaviour? How and by whom are these tools developed, managed or modified?
We want the study to be transversal. It is of concern to numerous disciplines within management, or even more widely within organisational and labour sciences as a whole. To take just a few examples, we might mention various problems linked to customer logistics roles and to psychosocial risks, but also to the skills of agents in contact with the public, or even to the tools of co-innovation (in both B2C and B2B).
Within the field of reflection thus mapped out, four research questions are proposed to researchers as non-exhaustive areas to explore. They can be studied from various starting points in the context of both B2B and B2C relations (client-suppliers partnerships in their widest sense). A priori no methodological approach (ethnographical observation, questionnaires, intervention research etc) is excluded.
Customer deviation as a source of innovation
When a product or part of a production system is not used as the organisation expects, the customer’s deviant behaviour can result in innovation, or at least operate as a lever for creativity. In this case, how does the organisation spot this behaviour and incorporate it into its operating methods?
Roles of contact agents faced with deviant customer behaviour
What devices and tools are available for contact agents to manage deviant customer behaviour and, more widely, what roles are stipulated for them? What management methods are in place for these contact professions, and what latitude is given to agents for interpretation and decision making in cases of deviance?
Management of deviant customer behaviour and organisational performance
Although customer deviance can have a positive impact on the organisation as a source of organisational learning, it also seems to be capable of impairing performance. Thus the management of deviant behaviour has multiples objectives, and the measurement of its performance has numerous indicators. What management tools are there for deviant behaviour? What are their objectives and their results? How and by whom are they evaluated?
Organisational dynamics and emergence of customer deviance
Deviance is not an easy concept organisationally; it seems to be at the crossing point between several sets, both of language and of meaning, and between many different actors (operational, managing, other customers...). Hence many questions can be raised about what constitutes deviance and what constitutes deviant customers in organisations. How do the actors spot deviant customer behaviour? How do they describe them? How do they use the expression? What meaning does deviance have for them?
1 A research seminar held in 2010, the results of which are to appear in a special edition of Gérer & Comprendre, looked at the organisational dimension of the management of deviant customer behaviour.
