Tough Customers
Don't let "service with a smile" leave your employees with frowns.
Robert Girau had had about enough. A corporate manager for
Atlanta-based fast-food chain Wing Zone, he'd just spent 30
minutes on the phone with an irate customer who hadn't received
her order. "She said I was a liar," Girau says. She also
threatened him. But as an employee, Girau knew he had to keep his
cool and try to solve the problem. "It was frustrating,"
he says. "No matter what the customer is saying, you [have to]
try not to take it personally."
A lot of employees find themselves in Girau's shoes. After
all, every company has customers who can be overly demanding,
angry, even abusive. But, as the business mantra goes, the customer
is always right. For employees on the receiving end of a customer
interaction gone wrong, there's incredible pressure to simply
grin and bear it. Service with a smile is always good business.
Or is it? Alicia Grandey, an assistant professor of industrial
and organizational psychology at Penn State University in
University Park, studies the effects of "emotional
labor," what employees face when they must manage their
emotions on the job. She says employers need to be aware of how
stressful customer interactions are affecting the morale and health
of their employees.
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