14 DAY TRIAL // A customer witnessing rude behavior among employees will have a negative perception of the company, even if the event happens between employees, according to a new research. This phenomenon was observed across a wide range of industries, like banks, restaurants, universities, government offices and retail stores. Customers complained about bad behavior, inappropriate gestures and intentionally offensive comments between employees.
In the August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, will appear four studies carried out by Deborah MacInnis, Professor of Business Administration at the USC Marshall School of Business and Vice Dean for Research and Strategy along with co-authors Christine Porath, former Assistant Professor of Management and Organization at USC Marshall and Assistant Professor of Management at Georgetown University, and Valerie Folkes, USC Associates Chair in Business Administration and Professor of Marketing at USC Marshall. The research focused on how witnessing employee incivility gave customers a negative feeling about the company.
If customers witnessed a store manager calling an incompetent employee an “idiot”, they still jumped to negative conclusions. Even if the rude employee was trying to help the customer, this last would still turn against the company. People would rather wait for an employee gossiping on the phone, than having him/her reprimanded rudely by the manager in front of them.
Deborah MacInnis said that “these findings underscore the need for organizations to promote employee civility. Training employees to treat one another well enhances the bottom line because of its impact on customer behavior."
The authors also add that “whereas one might anticipate that incivility directed at consumers has extremely negative effect, we show that consumers are also negatively affected when they are mere observers of incivility between employees.”
They suggest different methods for companies to promote and develop employee civility, like “selecting for and training in civility, setting zero-tolerance expectations and reprimanding incivility before it festers.”