Service and Experience: That’s rude–effects of customer incivility on front line employee performance
The barista at the coffee shop believed he had given the customer the very best of service that day. He had welcome the customer with a smile. He had spoken to the man well. To top it all up, when he proceeded to give the customer his coffee, he told the customer to “Have a nice day!” But that was the “mistake” he made. Because the customer got angry.
Why?
Because, according to the customer, the employee was being rude.
Why?
Because the employee should have rather said “Thank you” and not “Have a nice day”. According to the customer, the “Thank you” was ‘company standard’.” As a matter of fact, the customer was so angry that he actually wrote a letter to the Corporate Office to complain about the incident.
When I came across the above story I first thought it was joke. How is “Have a nice day” a worse response than “Thank you”? Who even gets angry at being told to have a nice day? I have no idea what that customer had eaten, drank or smoked that morning but something was not right with him.
And when I saw the part where the customer complained that the front line employee was rude, I could not help but laugh out loud. How is saying “Have a nice day” instead of saying “Thank you” an act of impoliteness? If that was rude, then I would not know what to call the many instances that customers have been nothing short of insufferable.
Case in point was a customer who went to a supermarket to purchase hand sanitisers. After walking down the aisle to pick the bottles of sanitiser, she brought them to the counter to pay for them. However, when she got to the counter, she realised that there were hand sanitisers also placed at the checkout counter, meaning she did not have to walk all the way to the aisles to find the sanitisers. The customer went berserk.
The fact that she had had to walk down the aisle to find, pick and bring the bottles of sanitiser to the front desk, only to find out that she need not have walked that far was too much for her. According to the story, she was so angry at the front desk professional she met that day. So much so that she let out a barrage of expletives, all directed that the front line employee. That was rude!
Rude behaviour can come in a plethora of shapes and forms—from rudely talking down on employees, staring down at employees, all through to customers threatening to beat up front line employees. The truth is that some customers can be so rude that sometimes it is even unbelievable. Sometimes, the actions of some customers make you wonder if they really know that the individuals being abused are also human beings with feelings. Rude behaviour from customers is a huge challenge for many organisations, especially so because in the long run, it is the customer who suffers.
It is not easy for the service and experience professional to be at the top of her game if she is dealing with a customer whose actions are nothing short of obnoxious. Having spent decades at the front line I know for a fact that this can test an individual to the one’s limit. To smile in the face of an annoying customer demands a lot of patience and self-control.
To remain professional while the one you are serving is trying everything in her power to get under your skin is not a job for the fainthearted. To keep serving a customer who makes you feel like less of a person is something that only few people look forward to. But this is what is expected of front line employees each and every day when they come to work.
The natural reaction of the average individual would be hit out at the annoying customer. It would be far easier to say something hurtful in return when one is being abused. However, that would be out of place for service and experience professional. A well-trained customer-interfacing professional is expected to know better and to do better.
This is why research shows that the personality of the customer service professional is very important when it comes to the success of the one as a front line professional. In other words, it takes a certain kind of individual to make for a great customer-facing professional. According to a study published in the September 2020 edition of the Service Industries Journal, the tendency for rude customer behaviour to affect the performance of the service employee was mediated by how the service employee sees herself. The study was titled “Rude Customers and Service Performance: Roles of Motivation and Personality”.
Individuals who believe in their inner worth and basic competence are better able to weather the storm of dealing with a rude customer. These are the employees with positive core self-evaluations, with low to no self-doubt whatsoever. These are the professionals who do not wait to be validated by the actions or inactions of others.
Self-doubt can be a very terrible issue to deal with. It is a canker that can really eat away at the confidence of an individual. One of the effects of self-doubt that might arise through customer rudeness is a tendency for the employee to not trust in his or her own abilities. This false evaluation of one’s capabilities can lead to manifestation of that lack of belief on the next customer. This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The individual begins to believe he or she does not have what it takes to give customers a great experience. And because of that mind-set, they truly become incapable of giving their customers that great experience.
to be continued