I recently read an article about customers being treated poorly by their waiting staff.  After a study by New Zealand’s Otago University’s management department on the country’s hospitality industry, it turns out that if customers are difficult or demanding, hospitality staff will return the favor.  Well, having worked in a restaurant for many years, and after interacting with customers of all sorts, I can attest to the University’s findings.

While a scientific study was conducted to confirm the findings, it’s pretty much common sense.  The underlying principle of getting good service is simple, reciprocity.  If the customer treated me well, and with respect, I had no problem returning the favor.  As a matter of fact, I went beyond my call of duty to make sure the customer  had a great dining experience.  My favorite customers weren’t the ones who tipped the most, but were the ones who treated me well.

So when do waiting staff cross the fine line from providing good service to providing crap service? Well, that depends on the customer’s behavior  That’s right, the customer has as much to do with service as the server.  Dr. Vicky Browning of Otago University says, “customers have a huge role to play in deviant behavior interaction is not just a one-way process.”  Remember, the customer isn’t always right.

Browning’s research found that frontline hospitality staff tend to mirror the behaviour of demanding or aggressive customers. Their retaliatory behaviour ranged from minor incidents, such as being rude or argumentative, to more serious behaviour where employees became verbally or physically abusive. Sabotage, such as spitting in a customer’s food, or collaborating with other staff to carry out some revenge, did occur but was not common.

Let me make more sense of this.  Let’s take customer complaints for example.  I expect customers to complain about the food once in a while, after all, you can’t please everybody.  But there’s a right way in complaining, and there’s a wrong way in complaining.

A complaint I received  more than once was that the broth in the noodle soup wasn’t hot enough.  To me, that’s not a problem at all, I’ll take it back, and I’ll either give it a zap in the microwave, or add more hot broth into the bowl.  But does it mean I’ll do it right away?  Well, it depends on how you complained to me.

Here’s the wrong way to complain:

“Sir, this soup is cold, how do you expect me to eat this, take it back and make it more hot…please!”

Well, in my mind, I was thinking, “what an ass.”  Of course, I politely said,  “I’ll go take care of it right away.” But did I take car of it right away?  You bet your ass I didn’t.  I placed the noodle soup on the side and went on working on other tasks until I felt it was time to take care of the complaint (usually a good 5 minutes go by).  When I returned the soup, I just placed it on the table and said, “here you go,” and walked away  For the rest of the night, my attentiveness to the customer was pretty much non-existent.  You might say that it’s not right to treat the customer that way.  Well, in my mind, I didn’t want to serve a customer with an attitude.

Here’s the right way to complain:

“Excuse me sir, I know you’re busy, but the soup seems to be on the cold side, would you please take care of this for me?”

The complaint is sincere, calm,  and it shows that the customer acknowledges I’m a bit busy.   Which means the customer knows that it might take some time to take care of the problem.  Well, since the customer was so nice, I went out of my way to take care of the issue right away.  When I returned, I apologized for the cold soup and I asked the customer if there was anything else I could take care of.

As a customer, know this:  Don’t mess with the people who handle your food!  Don’t give attitude, understand the situation, and have a bit of patience.  Whatever the reason for poor service (waiter, cooks, management), a restaurant employee is just a person, so don’t treat him or her like you are high and mighty.  And don’t forget, a difficult customer isn’t easily forgotten.

~ Kin