Don’t give me just positive feedback: How positive and negative feedback can increase feedback-based goal setting and proactive customer service behavior

Abstract

How can managers use positive and negative feedback to encourage employees’ proactive customer service behavior (PCSB)? This question has significant implications because while companies utilize feedback for employee development, it remains unclear how different forms of manager feedback can improve or impair customer service. We synthesize the feedback, goal-setting, and proactive service behavior literature and propose a motivational driver–goal setting–goal striving–goal attainment (MG3) model to help unpack the feedback–PCSB link. Using time-wave survey data in Study 1, we find that feedback-based goal setting fully mediates the effect of positive (but not negative) feedback on PCSB. Using controlled experiments in Studies 2 and 3, we demonstrate that while positive feedback affects feedback-based goal setting through feedback utility, negative feedback does so via feedback accountability, revealing distinct mechanisms. Our research underscores the importance of distinguishing between feedback types when the goal is to foster PCSB.