…when customers make mistakes
The job of the front line employee is not for the fainthearted. I make this bold claim not because this has been my field of interest for the past two decades and more. I write this because it is a fact. The job of serving customers is not a walk in the park. It takes a lot to come to work every day just to face different customers with different temperaments, in different moods and with different intentions.
Interestingly, the job of the front line has often rather been deemed to be for the soft-hearted in the workplace. It is not uncommon to see the most delicate of employees sent to face customers. The belief is that the more aesthetically appealing, the easier it is to break down even the hardest of customers. But if the toughest battles are reserved for the toughest soldiers, then one can confidently state that those who deal with those at the front line deserve to be recognised as the toughest in the workplace.
In my years of experience at the front line, I can say on authority that what makes the job of the front line employee more difficult is that the one interfaces between not just the organisation and its external customers, but the external customer and the internal customer. A back office staff can stay behind the scenes for months and never get to meet one aggrieved customer. That is not the case of the front line employee. Every now and then, a service and experience professional is sure to come across a customer from hell. Such encounters can oftentimes be so emotionally draining, that it leaves a trail of destruction behind if not managed well.
It is therefore not surprising that a recent study found that front line work tends to really affect the well-being of those at the front. Of the many factors that have a detrimental effect on the well-being of front line employees, the one that the aforementioned study touched on was customer failures. Yes, when customers fail in the duty as customers.
Customer failures refer to any actions by customers that have a negative impact on that customer’s experience, the experience of other customers or the company’s productivity. Titled, “The Customer Is Often Wrong: Investigating the Influence of Customer Failures and Apologies on Frontline Service Employee Well-Being,” the study’s results were published in the January 2023 edition of the Psychology & Marketing journal.
In an era when we are inundated with the power of the customer—when “The Customer is Always Right” is almost a religious mantra—it becomes dicey for organisations to even suggest that customers can make mistakes. But so long as customers continue to play important roles in the service delivery process, they are bound to make mistakes. Regardless of what you feel about customers, the truth is that, customers too do make mistakes. After all, they are also human, like the rest of us.
Customers makes mistakes when filling out forms. Customers give out wrong information. Customers can misunderstand instructions and do contrary to expectations. Customers too forget times for appointments. Customers too make mistakes when they use products wrongly. To tell the truth, a study published in 2003, claimed that one-third of all service problems are caused by the customer. The fact is that customers make mistakes and when they do, service mishaps occur.
It might come as a surprise to those who do not have to deal with customers on a daily basis. But when things do not go too well during the customer’s experience, many front line employees take things very personally, whether it is the employee’s fault or the customers. Even in those situations where the fault lies fully with the customer, front line employees still suffer from some form of anxiety.
For instance, in the healthcare industry, a patient’s failure to administer a medication as exactly prescribed by a physician can result in a loss of the patient’s life. This is enough to make the care giver anxious. In effect, when a customer’s mistake causes a service mishap, it is still the customer-facing employee that carries the burden and this ends up affecting the one’s health and well-being.
Thankfully, the aforementioned study found two factors that can alleviate the effect of customer failures on the well-being of front line employees. The first of these factors is Customer Apology. It is interesting to note that a simple Googling of the term “Customer Apology” will bring out millions and millions of sites and information. However, more than 90% of those sites will talk about how organisations are to apologise to customers, not the other way round.
It is not common to hear of or read about customers apologising. It is as if only businesses do things that offend customers. But if customers can make mistakes, then customers should be able to apologise when they make mistakes. When customers accept that they are the cause of the failure, it reduces the emotional stress on the employee and the situation becomes a lot more manageable.
The second factor, according to the Psychology & Marketing journal article, is Supervisor Support. Defined as “the degree to which supervisors value their employees’ contributions and care about their well-being”, Supervisor Support is one of the most important factors in service and experience. We are told that “leadership is cause and all else is effect.” This is so true when it comes to customer service and customer experience. The quality of the supervisor directly determines the quality of the team.
Teams with leaders who offer support are known to be highly effective. According to researchers, there are a number of benefits that accrue to organisations where there are high levels of supervisor support. These benefits include reported increase in job satisfaction and an improvement in employees’ perceptions of organisational support. Other benefits are improved relationship between the organisation and its internal customers. There is also reduced job tension when staff have a leader who is there to offer support when needed. There will also be a reduction in the work-family conflict of the employee. All these can lead to a reduction in the turnover of employees in that organisation.
Supervisor Support can come in a variety of ways. Not surprisingly, support from supervisors has very little to do with money. Support that employees value include supervisors listening to their team members when these employees have something on their minds they want to share. Sometimes, all a supervisor needs to do to show support is to be available. Supervisor support also includes motivation. There is something inspiring about leaders who speak words or encouragement to their team members.
A supervisor can also provide support via feedback. Employees want to know if they are doing well on the job. Whether the feedback is negative or positive, having a supervisor who gives that information can be invaluable to employees. The wrong kind of supervisor is the one who only gives out negative feedback. If you hear from your supervisor only when something has gone wrong, it would only be a matter of time before you become demoralised.
With such an important role to play in the quality of work churned out by employees, including those at the front line, it is no wonder that supervisors can make or break an organisation. Wrong supervisors alone can send a business into irreparable decline. The actions of supervisors is perceived as the stance of the organisation. This is why when things do not go well with the customer’s experience but the front line employee has a supervisor who will stand behind the employee, the emotional strain on the one becomes lessened. In this situation, front line employees feel it is the entire organisation that is standing behind them.
It makes sense that Customer Apology and Supervisor Support are factors that are responsible for the well-being of the customer service professional. Service failures mostly result in blame games. Unfortunately, when service failures occur, the first person to be blamed in most cases turns out to be the customer service employee. The quest to keep their customers makes some organisations blind to the possibility of the mistake emanating from the customer. To save face before a customer, there are some supervisors who will even lambast an employee right in front a customer. It therefore makes sense that an apology from a customer and support from a supervisor are two important factors for front line employees.
One of the interesting findings of the study however was that no matter the extent of a customer’s apology, if the supervisor’s support was lacking, the employee still suffers. Additionally, if a customer refuses to apologise for a mistake but the supervisor shows support for the employee, the employee’s well-being is enhanced. This study clearly shows the importance of immediate superiors, supervisors and managers in the life and work of a front line employee.
As long as the sun sets and rises again, and customers continue to play an increase role in the production of goods and services, mistake are bound to happen. These mistakes can come from the organisation or from the customer. If it is the latter case, supervisors must be up and doing. Supervisors do not always have to choose the side of the customer, to the detriment of frontline employees. Supervisors must be tactful enough to ensure that they do not win the customer and lose the employee. That employee might not resign but the one can come to work and not be at work.
