Managing Corrosive Customers

A restaurant patron berates a waiter for delivering the wrong entrée. A traveler cuts in line at an airline ticket counter and demands immediate service. A manager refuses to gather the documentation an outside consultant needs to provide services. As these examples suggest, the obnoxious customer has many faces. Equally troubling, the reasons behind corrosive customer behavior — whether unrealistic expectations, sheer orneriness or just ignorance of company rules — are not always clear.

One thing is certain, however: When a customer behaves poorly, businesses pay a high price in declining employee satisfaction and performance. Companies can therefore benefit from understanding what’s behind nasty customer outbursts and by designing effective interventions. A new study identifies common problematic behaviors and proposes intervention strategies, relying on service employees’ accounts of unpleasant encounters with customers — on the assumptions that servers’ emotional responses affect a company’s ability to satisfy customers. The October 2004 working paper is titled Negative Customer Behavior in Service Encounters: Implications for Service Management by Ray W. Coye, associate professor of management at DePaul University’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business, Chicago, and Rohit Verma, associate professor of management and Thayne Robson Fellow at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business.

The researchers base their conclusions on a three-year study in which nearly 425 employees from numerous industries (including hospitality, health care and education, as well as financial, IT, legal, retail and travel services) were asked during structured interviews to describe a “very unpleasant” service encounter they experienced within the preceding six months. The study used the critical incident technique, which Verma defines as “an observable human behavior that significantly contributes to or detracts from some overall endeavor.” In this effort, critical incidents were specific customer behaviors associated with server perceptions of unpleasant service encounters.

Coye and Verma identify four categories of negative customer behavior:

Service failure. For example, the wrong meal is brought to a restaurant patron, prompting complaints. Or the correct meal is delivered, but the customer believes a mistake was made. Customers may also grouse about employees’ legitimate refusal to satisfy a service request (“What do you mean, I can’t have another drink?”).

Inappropriate customer behavior. This category includes customers’ failure to participate correctly in service encounters (for example, showing up late for a reservation), customer violations of company rules or behavior norms (smoking, cutting in line) and attempts to take advantage of employees (“I really did ask for a 1 p.m. reservation!”).

Customer demands and expectations. Examples include impatience with normal service delivery (“My kid could do this faster”) and unrealistic demands of servers (“I know you can let me in without my ID”) or delivery systems (“I don’t care if the hotel’s full; I demand a room”). This category also includes demands for unreasonable attention from service employees (“I’m in the executive club — I want satisfaction now!”).

Server competency. Customers may question servers’ skills (“I do have a reservation; you’re looking in the wrong file”) or refuse service-recovery efforts (“A free meal won’t mollify me”). Customers may also decry legitimate requests from servers (“I’ve got to show my ID again?”).

To avoid the high costs of negative customer behavior, service managers must uncover the causes and design interventions appropriate to each category. For example, in the case of unrealistic demands of delivery systems, companies can find out how customers are forming their expectations and make necessary corrections. Ensuring clear customer expectations at the point of delivery is vital.

With complaints related to real and perceived service failures, employees need the communication skills and latitude to determine what happened and to then attempt service recovery. If customers are upset about service refusals, workers must know how to explain company rules diplomatically. When clients fail to hold up their end of the service bargain, a manager can find out why (have they misunderstood instructions?) and take corrective action, which might include clarifying instructions and emphasizing the importance of following procedures. In cases of unmerited rudeness, employees who demonstrate empathy and reflective listening can often defuse tension.

Coye and Verma recommend augmenting this study with additional research into patterns of negative customer behavior across different industries and service settings. Employees’ emotional responses to unpleasant customers may also merit study. For additional information, contact Verma at rverma@mindfolio.com.