Breaking bad news: How frontline employees cope with bad news disclosure to customers

Cécile Delcourt, Dwayne D. Gremler, Dominique A. Greer

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science · 2025 · Volume 53 · Issue 5

Abstract

Disclosing bad news to customers during service encounters is an unavoidable, demanding task that can generate significant stress for frontline employees (FLEs). Despite the pervasiveness of bad news disclosure in service contexts, prior research has not explicitly examined how FLEs prepare for or optimize the delivery of bad news, whether to reduce their own work stress or to mitigate its negative impact on customers. Using multidisciplinary literature and depth interviews pertaining to 192 bad news disclosures, this research (1) delineates the concept of bad news disclosure and the types of bad news disclosed in service settings; (2) draws on coping theory to develop an integrative framework of how bad news disclosure unfolds in service encounters and how it affects customer-, employee-, and organization-related outcomes; (3) offers a protocol that FLEs can use to prepare for bad news disclosure and soften the blow for customers; and (4) proposes a research agenda to clarify how service organizations and FLEs should manage bad news disclosure.

Keywords

Bad news disclosure, Critical incident technique, Customer experience management, Frontline employee, Coping theory, Service recovery, Conflict communication

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