Jobs that require a high degree of customer interaction are categorized as emotional labor because the emotions displayed by the service provider have an impact on the customer’s perception of service quality. For example, in a restaurant, customers could care less whether or not the kitchen staff smile when they prepare the food, but if the waiter does not smile and display a positive attitude as customers are seated, orders are taken, food is delivered, and checks are presented, customers might perceive that the quality of service was not what it should be.
What if the waiter is frustrated with the kitchen staff’s ability to prepare food fast enough to impress customers? Should the waiter show some of that frustration to customers, or should the waiter fake it and try to display emotions inconsistent with what he is really feeling?
A study recently published in the Journal of Applied Psychology (full citation below) showed that more authentic displays of emotion led to service transactions that were more likely to exceed customer expectations. The authors studied 60 restaurant service providers as each served 10 separate customers and found that the employees that displayed more authentic emotions (e.g. I try to actually experience the emotions that I must show to customers) received better tips and customer ratings than employees that faked emotions (e.g. I fake a good mood with customers). The only exception was that when extraverted employees faked emotions they got good tips but not good evaluations.
The authors conducted a follow-up call center simulation with 160 undergraduate students. In this study the authors controlled for the personality traits extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism and once again found that more authentic displays of emotions resulted in more friendly performance and a higher likelihood of helping customers in extra ways.
Expecting employees to hide or fake their true emotions at work is bad advice. Not only will they experience more stress, but they will also probably fail to deliver performance that exceeds customer expectations.
A better course of action would be to provide managers with good training on emotional intelligence. Help them understand the impact of emotions on performance, how to recognize and regulate their own emotions, and how to respond to the emotions of others at work. Then give your managers the tools to teach these skills to their team.
The recognition, regulation, and tactical leveraging of emotion at work will increasingly become part of sound management practices for leading organizations.
Full citation: Chi, N.W. et. al. (2011). Want a tip? Service performance as a function of emotion regulation and extraversion. Journal of Applied Psychology.
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Bret, I understand the sentiment that you should be authentic when serving customers but what do you do when you are in a really pissed off mood?
Managing a staff of sales associates, I deal with an emotional rainbow every day. As a leader, I do my best to find out what is going on for a visibly unhappy employe, but in all honesty, they have to be able to put it away for later. Customers usually don’t care if they had a fight with a loved one or if someone cut them off in the parking lot.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Miriam
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 6:29 am
Emotional rainbow – that’s a good description! I guess we have to help employees understand the emotional display required at work, and remind them that the more authentic that display is the better. Fake it when you have to, but in the long run, if the job requires a lot of smiling, it would be good to try to actually like what you are doing. That’s not just an employee issue, that’s also a job design and leadership issue. Thanks! Bret
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That’s interesting, because it seems intuitive that an employee should act like they are in a good mood or enjoying their job no matter what mood they are actually in. That’s what you always teach your staff, leave your emotions at the door. So it’s interesting that a study showed almost the opposite effect. And of course someone isn’t going to be happy all the time, so teaching them tricks to actually change their mood is a great suggestion.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Great point, Erin. But it is not a realistic suggestion! The study is NOT suggesting that people not try to control emotions, but that they try to understand the correct emotions to display at work and then to try to display those with authenticity. Thanks! Bret
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