Difficult Conversations in Customer Service: Conflict Management Style and The Role of Empathy and Self-Efficacy

Abstract: This study examines how customer service employees manage difficult conversations in organizational service settings, focusing on the role of empathy, self-efficacy and conflict management styles. Conceptualizing customer service employees as non-neutral representatives operating between organizational expectations and customer interests, the study integrates perspectives from conflict management, psychology, and organizational communication. Customer service employees reported on difficult conversations in both workplace and personal contexts. Measures included self-efficacy, empathy, and conflict management styles. Findings indicate that the integrating style was the most frequently used and was more at work than in personal contexts. Self-efficacy and empathy were positively associated with integrating style in both contexts. Regression analyses showed that in personal contexts both self-efficacy and empathy uniquely predicted integrating style, whereas in workplace contexts only self-efficacy did so. The study highlights the interplay between individual psychological resources and organizational structures and how it comes out in managing difficult conversations practically.

Keywords: Conflict Management Style, Difficult Conversations, Empathy, Self-Efficacy