While management scholars have devoted most attention to customer misbehaviors, our knowledge regarding the effects of customer courtesy remains incomplete. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we explore the associations between customer courtesy, employee relational energy, and proactive customer service performance. We propose that customer courtesy can foster employee relational energy, which in turn promotes employee proactive customer service performance. Customer contact frequency moderates the association between customer courtesy and relational energy, as well as the indirect influence of customer courtesy on employee proactive behaviors through relational energy. To examine our hypotheses, we conducted two studies using different research methods and samples, including an online experiment and a field study. Our findings reveal that customer courtesy serves as a valuable source of relational energy, and accumulated resource energy enables employees to engage in proactive customer service performance during service encounters. The benefits of customer courtesy are more pronounced when there are frequent customer interactions.
