CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
14th Toulon-Verona Conference “Organizational Excellence in Services”
University of Alicante - University of Oviedo (Spain) – September 1-3, 2011
pp. 115-131 – ISBN: 978 88904327-1-2
14th Toulon – Verona Conference
Excellence in Services
Alicante, 1-2-3 September 2011
The need for customer education in high people-density services: a new role
for service providers?1
Claudio Baccarani, University of Verona
[email protected]
Federico Brunetti, University of Verona
[email protected]
KEY-WORDS: high people-density services – badly-mannered consumers – customer
education
1. Introduction
In recent decades a general deterioration in behaviour and the loss of good manners seem to
be increasingly features of our society, at least this would seem to be the case in Italy. This
loss of manners has repercussions on people’s conduct as users or consumers of businesses,
and in particular those concerns that provide high people-density services – those, either
public or private, characterized by a high number of people attending at the same time.
In such a context not only does the consumer or pro-user become ever more
demanding, impatient and intolerant in the face of the even slightest difficulty, but also
frequently adopts inappropriate attitudes and behaviour that may include rudeness and
disrespectfulness.
Businesses have thus had to deal with users whose civility has been falling off at an
alarming rate. By way of opening examples consider the habit students have of eating and
drinking during lectures or lessons, the disturbance caused by noisy patrons of bars at night
and the arrogant conduct encountered in hotels, restaurants and other facilities used by, what
1
Although our work has been jointly conceived and comes from shared reflections, paragraphs 1-4 have been
written by Federico Brunetti, while paragraph 5 has been written by Claudio Baccarani.
may indeed be quite wealthy tourists who seem little aware of the customs of the places in
which they are guests.
There are a number of threads running through the literature that address inappropriate
behaviour on the part of customers: specifically consumer misbehaviour, aberrant consumer
behaviour or dysfunctional consumer behaviour. We are in this paper not addressing the issue
of the extreme fringe that commits actual criminal offences involving violence, vandalism,
stealing and such like, nor even such undoubtedly improper conduct such as verbal abuse,
blaming or submitting fraudulent returns, but that broader multifarious area of conduct and
attitudes that could simple be described as disrespectful.
Though the conduct under consideration may be regarded as constituting “minor”
aberrations, which as such often the company management often just let go, and perceived
moreover as being largely impossible to eliminate, they remain without question difficult
situations for such organisations to contend with.
The sheer scale the phenomenon has assumed leads to a supposition that it may be
having a significant negative impact on the companies in question and on society itself, and as
such is worthy of further consideration in this paper.
As regards the company organisation, we shall see that the bad manners of the
customer generates stress for the staff, a worsening of the service provided, a loss of image in
relation to other customers and together these all lead in their different ways to an overall
deterioration in terms both of the quality of the service provided and the economic
performance of the company.
In social terms, as will also be considered later, the bad manners of the customer
generates feelings of disaffection, unease, impotence and distrust. To put it bluntly a loss of
social capital in the community of a particular area.
This paper therefore seeks to define and clarify the notion of the badly-mannered
customer and then work out some ideas of how the loss of manners and civic sense rife
among today’s customers can be addressed, all with the aim of improving the quality of
output in these high people-density public services.
By way of a start, the following paragraph will analyse the current literature on the
subject, and go on to define the concept at the heart of the study. After clarifying
methodological considerations, some suggestions will be put forward on how to address the
issue in question, discussing in particular the role the organisations providing the services can
play themselves.
2. Literature Review
As often happens in the literature this whole area is replete with labels, each associated with a
similar or with a quite different content as the case may be.
A chronological review of the main threads must take in the notions of “Aberrant
Consumer Behavior” (Fullerton, Punj, 1993), “Jaycustomer behavior” (Lovelock, 1994),
”Consumer Misbehavior” (Fullerton, Punj, 1997), “Dysfunctional Customer Behavior”
(Harris, Reynolds, 2003) and “Unfair Customers” (Berry, Seiders, 2007).
Fullerton and Punj, in their first work based on the literature in the areas of the
sociology of deviance, criminology, criminology and psychology, define aberrant consumer
behaviour as “behavior in exchange settings which violates the generally accepted norms of
conduct in such situations and which is therefore held in disrepute by marketers and by most
consumers” (Fullerton, Punj, 1993, 570). The work deliberately avoided going on to describe
specific acts of aberrant consumer behaviour, preferring to concentrate the factors that lead to
it as outcome.
A subsequent work however has the stated aim of defining “Consumer Misbehavior”,
suggesting that it consists in “behavioral acts by consumers which violate the generally
accepted norms of conduct in consumption situations, and disrupt the order expected in such
situations” (Fullerton, Punj, 1997, 336). The examples offered include credit card fraud,
exhibitionism, acts of violence, shoplifting and the switching of price tags.
Referring to the sociological Labelling Theory, they affirm the inadequacy of criteria
based on the “criminal” nature of such actions, as well as the inadequacy of intentionality, and
end up by embracing a deliberately broad view of the phenomenon.
Lovelock for his part introduces the notion of “jaycustomers”, defined as “those who
deliberately act in a thoughtless or in an abusive manner, causing problems for the firm,
employees, or other customers” (Lovelock, 2004).
Harris and Reynold set out to add to the understanding of the various forms of
“jaycustomer behavior” leading them to the categorisation of behaviour. The eight types of
behaviour thus identified are compensation letter writers, undesirable customers, property
abusers, service workers, vindictive customers, oral abusers, physical abusers and sexual
predators.
Harris and Reynolds also put forward two classification criteria, i.e. visibility and
principal motivation. As regards the former, a distinction is made between hidden and open
conduct, while the second criterion distinguishes between conduct that is financially
motivated and that which is not financially motivated.
In 2003 Harris and Reynolds turned their attention to the consequences of bad
behaviour on the part of customers, introducing the concept of “dysfunctional consumer
behavior”, deeming this to be a more neutral term that applies to “actions by customers who
intentionally or unintentionally, overtly or covertly, act in a manner that, in some way,
disrupts otherwise functional service encounters” (Harris, Reynolds, 2003, 145).
Fullerton and Punj, in their interesting contribution to the discussion in 2004, defined
consumer misbehaviour as “behavioural acts by consumers, which violate the generally
accepted norms of conduct in consumption situations, and thus disrupt the consumption
order”, furnishing us with a classification essentially built on those at the receiving end of the
misbehaviour. They thus come to identify behaviour that is directed at the employees of the
concern, at the assets of the business, at other consumers, at the financial affairs of the
company and finally at the physical or electronic structures of the business.
Each of these types is then examined in relation to the nature of the actions, to the type
and degree of damage and to the reactions of the business itself and of other consumers. This
contribution to the literature is interesting not only for the depth of its analysis but also
because, as shall be seen, it establishes a link between bad behaviour by consumers and the
consumer culture cultivated by business.
In 2007 Berry and Seiders brought us the new label of “customer unfairness”, which
“occurs when a customer behaves in a manner that is devoid of common decency,
reasonableness, and respect for the rights of others, creating inequity and causing harm for a
company and, in some cases, its employees and other customers” (Berry, Seiders, 2007, 30).
In this landscape, the unfairness is perceived where the actions are sufficiently serious and
repeated, requiring the crossing of certain damage and frequency threshold, while in every
case the intentionality of the action is applicable. Berry and Seiders also identify what they
deem to be the types of conduct that is classifiable as unfair. They recognise this category as
containing the likes of verbal abusers, blamers, rule breakers, opportunists and returnaholics.
Finally, Fisk et al. have recently provided a wide-ranging review aimed at highlighting
the important issues in this area and proposing a research agenda for academics in this field.
There is a noteworthy attempt by these authors to provocatively go out and seek the possible
positive effects of badly behaving customers (Fisk et al., 2010.
This analysis indicates two fundamental perspectives: misbehaviour occurring where
there is a failure to adhere to “generally accepted norms” and when behaviour results in
“disruption” to “otherwise functional service encounters”. In the first case the emphasis is on
rule breaking, leaving aside its effects, while the second primarily draws attention to the
consequences of the conduct, irrespective of any failure to comply with any rules. The
common factor is a certain openness and indeterminacy in these concepts that cannot easily be
contained within clear boundaries. Both the generally accepted rules and the damage suffered
by otherwise effective services leave space for subjective evaluations and no specific criteria
are laid down for their identification.
Not just with regard to the definition of terms, but also when the other characteristics
of the concepts under examination are considered, such as intentionality, motivation and
visibility, interpretations do in fact diverge. It is therefore no great surprise that the types
include a range of actions and behaviour that is most definitely heterogeneous in nature.
3. Comments on methodology
The work addresses a subject that, as emerges from the review of the literature, has only quite
recently appeared. Consumer misbehaviour, aberrant consumer behaviour and dysfunctional
consumer behaviour offer points of contact with the concept of customer bad manners, but it
is certainly not the case that the different forms of bad behaviour coincide with each other.
The work also considers a subject that is to be found, at least at first glance, at the
margins of management theories and techniques. The problem of ill mannered customers
could be regarded as not pertinent to the management and the organisation of services,
coming rather within the sphere of sociology. In reality, as this paper will seek to show, such
problems have repercussions on public and private organisations that provide high people-
density services and as such they are a legitimate subject of study from the management
perspective.
The relative newness of the subject and its apparent marginality therefore necessitate a
methodological approach that is still exploratory in nature. As regards the research strategy, at
this stage examples need to be gathered and some kind of definition of the subject of the
investigation needs to be settled on. The preferred method for the collection of data is direct
observation.
Such method is clearly subject to possible bias, due to the subjective nature of any
judgement on the greater or lesser gravity of the bad manners displayed in any given
behaviour. One of the results of the work may consist in a preliminary framework construct,
starting from which researchers can develop a more complete and accurate definition.
As well as the descriptive part, the work also makes a preliminary attempt to develop
some prescriptive proposals. This amounts to, and it could be no other way, embarking on a
reasoning process. Given the importance of and the impact of the loss of manners on the part
of high people-density service users, it seemed right thing to at least try to suggest possible
ways forward for a solution.
4. The construct, its antecedents and the consequences
Having looked at those concepts closet of the subject of our work and after emphasised the
exploratory nature of the research, it is time to deal directly with the bad behaviour of the
customer. What is meant here by “bad customer behaviour”? How should it be defined? What
kind of behaviour is involved? What are the causes? How has such as state of affairs come
about? What are the effects? What will happen if we continue to slide down this slope?
The concept of Customer bad behaviour
It is not our intention to further add to the confusion surrounding this subject, but it does seem
that our construct of customer bad behaviour grasps certain aspects that have been overlooked
by other authors.
To give a rough outline of our concept, with regard in general to less serious forms of
conduct, it comes with the classification of “violation of generally accepted norms” of
Fullerton and Punj as well as that of “disruption of otherwise functional service encounters”
of Harris and Reynolds. On the one hand there is no doubt that bad behaviour is conduct that
goes against that which is normally regarded as acceptable. On the other hand it seems
equally true that it does alter the normal provision of a service.
It would seem that it is closest to the “customer unfairness” idea of Berry Seiders,
though not coinciding precisely with this. Berry and Seiders’ categories of verbal abusers,
blamers, rule breakers, opportunists and returnaholics do however regard forms of behaviour
for which the business concerned is the direct object.
Our concept of bad customer behaviour has, though, more to do with the personal
ways of being and ways of doing of the customer, which are at least not in the first place
aimed at the business even if they do have their affect on it.
The bad behaviour to which we refer originates simply with conduct that is neither
particularly serious nor that is carried out with the actual intention to cause damage. The
behaviour concerned consists rather in conduct characterised by lack of respect for or
thoughtfulness towards other customer and others in general.
From our perspective bad behaviour means essentially the failure to afford respect, a
the lack of thoughtfulness and a lack of consideration for the sensitivities of third parties
during the provision of the service. It is as if the badly behaved customer thinks he or she is
alone, taking no account of the current or subsequent presence of any colleagues or customers
(Axia, 1996).
The case histories that we can furnish here are necessarily incomplete and serve only
as examples. Anecdotal evidence that may be cited includes the littering of railway carriages,
damaging furnishings in the university buildings, keep seats occupied on means of transport
or in libraries while not actually occupying them, jumping taxi queues, airport check-ins and
ticket office lines.
These can be regarded, all things considered, as “light” infringements, where no
serious damage is caused. In most cases the “victims” suffer without visibly reacting to the
situation. The latent psychological or emotional damage may however be more significant.
The fact is, bad behaviour is difficult to define for the very reason that the rules of
“good manners” are rarely, if ever, found written and codified in manuals or other form.
Where will it ever be found written that it is good manners to give up a seat for an old person
in a public vehicle. Where is the principle that it is good to keep your telephone conversations
confidential expressed as a rule of good conduct? Who is it that teaches us not to flock to the
dishes at a buffet dinner and not to hinder the access of other persons standing immobile
waiting to get to the table?
“Good manners” are or should be first and foremost taught by the family, then by
educational institutions and finally by the community as a whole. It is difficult to find other
sources dealing with the matter of transferring these kinds of “minor rules”. This is perhaps
because their are just that, minor in nature or simply because they are given as read and it is
thought that they are somehow “automatically” acquired.
It is interesting to note that the term “maleducazione” in Italian (badly-mannered or
literally badly-taught or ill-educated) refers not directly to conduct but to its cause, perceived
of as part of an unsuccessful education process. “Maleducazione” is not defined in this case as
an actual quality but is left hanging indeterminately without reference to what it consists of.
As often happens, it is no doubt a subjective and dynamic concept whose parameters
will vary from person to person and will also change over time. It is in any case interesting
how bad behaviour is principally in the eye of the beholder, the person suffering from it or the
outside observer, while the agent usually remains unaware of it, or choose to pay no attention
to it for some reason.
For the sake of clarity it should be said that we are not talking here about bad
behaviour or bad manners in general, but rather the instances that take place in the context of
a business organisation, that is to say in the carrying out of a service provided by an
organisation. While the organisation in question may be public or private in nature.
Services that involve limited interaction between the provided and the user, or that are
performed in the present of a limited number of people, such as in a hairdresser’s salon, at a
the office of a law firm or an insurance office, do not come within the scope of the problems
addressed in this discussion.
Bad behaviour is more frequent, and above all has a greater impact where the service
concerned is carried out in the presence of a large number of other people, usually customers
who are using the same service or that are waiting to be served. It is for this reason that the
services in question are defined as though characterised by “high people-density”.
These services most commonly delegate tasks to the customers for their selfproduction of the desired output and have relatively few company employees on hand. The
relationship between staff and customers is normally low level. On the train, in the university
faculty or in a hotel, the travellers, students or guests are often left to carry out most of the
required actions on their own.
Three potentially negative conditions thus appear in combination, the presence of a
large number of consumers, low levels of staffing and a large share of the performance of the
service given over to the consumers themselves.
Since an ever broader bouquet of activities is now carried out by people in
environments that are controlled by organisations, many authoritative writers have defined
ours not so much as a a market economy as an organisation economy (Mintzberg, 1989;
Ghoshal, 2009)), with the result that the problem in question is far from being a secondary
issue.
The causes behind bad customer behaviour
Among the reasons underlying this situation, the following should be included:
a. the processes of our time that tend to delegitimise authority,
b. the affirmation of the logic and the rhetoric of the sovereignty of the customer,
c. the availability of devices and technologies that foster the perception of
omnipotence.
Having defined bad customer behaviour in the terms we have above, it is inevitable when
considering the causes to make reference to the most wide-ranging factors.
One of the foremost of causes can be seen in the social processes that have for a long
time now seen a decline in the traditional sources of authority. Parallel to these there has been
a growth in individual freedoms and discretionary actions with ever greater emphasis on selfgenerated rather than hetero-generated rules of conduct. People have steadily been acquiring
greater liberty.
Such process should not be regarded as a matter of regret, indeed quite the opposite. It
would be hard to feel nostalgia for times that were dominated by convention, decorum and
honour, often in any case little more than window dressing, as often portrayed in costume
dramas set in Victorian times. The individual’s potential undoubtedly a greater chance of
being fulfilled today, when each person can, obviously within certain limits, follow his or her
own inclinations, dreams and aspirations more freely than in the past.
There is however an unavoidable other side to the coin, the decline in a “public
conduct ethic” that is there for all to see. It would seem that the growing affirmation of
individual rights and freedoms, of itself undoubtedly progress, has not been accompanied by
a corresponding consciousness of inescapable duties and responsibilities.
A second factor, which more directly relates to the company environment, is the
second principle, that is the sovereignty of the customer, the customer is boss. The centrality
of the customer, first from marketing theory and practice and then from total quality, has
made customers used to having their every need met and to assume that they are always right.
It is logical that such “customer-tyrants” feel they are not bound to act according to any
particular tenets, indeed feeling convinced of being possessed of the right to conduct
themselves entirely as they please (Fullerton, Punj, 2004). Well aware of their
indispensability to the prosperity and the very economic survival of the company concerned,
the customers are often to a greater or lesser extent encouraged to move with complete liberty,
ending up by feeling completely untouchable.
On closer inspection it is not the logic of the sovereignty of the customer in itself that
should be seen as a direct cause of bad behaviour, though it does prepare fertile ground for
lack of respect for rules or at least provide an environment in which a certain casualness of
conduct can take root. In the area of services the customer is so used to having his or her
wishes met that a widespread mentality has developed that is little inclined to any restrictions
on comportment. The principle of the sovereignty of the customer has thus developed into
misplaced feelings of omnipotence and a complete intolerance of any limitations.
In the specific instance of true public services, there is another factor at work. As there
is no figure of owner as such, each citizen-user feels to some extent its owner. As such he
feels all the more inclined to act as he pleases.
The last factor, also general in nature, relates to growth in the sense of power of the
customer, this time due to the effects of technology. The information and communication
technologies now accessible personally at any time and in any place, such as of course
personal computers and the smart phones, create in people the perception of having almost
unlimited powers. Memories that can now contain huge quantities of data in small portable
objects, tiny instruments with breathtaking powers of calculation and devices that enable the
user to quickly and with virtually no expenditure of energy to obtain any information of any
type give people the idea that everything is possible always, effortlessly and fast (Sennett,
2007). These kinds of technology moreover reduce the space for direct face to face human
interaction. Interpersonal relations ever more frequently pass by way of means of
communication which by definition can reach people that are far away, providing exposure to
the risk of increased psychological and emotional distance. People simply lose the habit of
having to deal with other people all increasingly immersed in, and caught up in, a web of
virtual connections. The result is a deterioration in the quantity and quality of human relations
that cannot, at least in part, fail to set lesser store on the importance of “good manners”.
Also in the case of these technologies, they cannot be said to be per se direct causes of
the bad behaviour but they are debilitating factors as regards the ability to wait, to accept
limits, to recognise that not everything can necessarily be done, on the one hand, and as
regards the normal performance of polite interpersonal discourse on the other.
Although it would of course be an option to proceed with a study of possible causes of
bad customer behaviour in its various manifestations, it was decided that this was not be the
remit of our investigation. The literature on aberrant consumer behaviour, on customer
misbehaviour or on dysfunctional consumer behaviour already offers a good deal of analysis
in this regard. Our remit has been to concentrate on other aspects which, though broad in
nature, seem to offer particular insights into the matter in hand while at the same time
providing a useful overview.
The effects of bad customer behaviour
Though the kinds of conduct under examination relate primarily to what are essentially
“merely” bad manners, their effects can be real enough. The main consequences of ill
mannered conduct are felt by:
a. other customers,
b. staff of the organisation concerned,
c. the business itself,
d. society at large.
Badly mannered behaviour first an foremost produces its effects on other customers. Except
in the case in which all of the customers behave (badly) in the same way, which may happen,
the first to suffer are the other persons who are at that time fellow users of the service. We
should incidentally recall that the services considered in this paper are only those involving
large numbers of customers.
The negative consequences are not necessarily suffered directly; if a student is eating
in the lecture theatre his fellows do not directly suffer, any consequences will be primarily
psychological in nature. Other students may complain (i) of having to put up with
inappropriate behaviour, (ii) of a sense of unfairness where some behave well and others
badly, and the way the respective students are treated, (iii) about the inability of the staff
members of the service to have their rules complied with and (iv) of their disappointment in
having to witness a deterioration of the quality of civil coexistence in their particular
community.
The first consequence therefore impacts on other consumers present, where these see
their limitations attaching to their own exercise of right as user (such as for example a seat
kept occupied in a hall with nobody actually using it) or where they are forced to bear put up
with indecorous behaviour, for example where the train travel finds another traveller with
shod or unshod feet up on the seat opposite. In other cases the damage may extend to future
users of the service (where for example train carriages are left littered or damaged).
In addition to this first series of consequences can be linked a cascade of consequences
for the staff, which as has been said have to put up with the criticism of being unable to keep
the situation under control. It is quite rare in practice for the other customers to ask the staff to
intervene, as where the conduct comes within the broad area of bad manners it is in practice
unlikely to cross the threshold into behaviour that will induce a demand for action. The
criticism, albeit implicit, tends however to linger. Such criticism may then extend towards the
management of the organisation, in its turn deemed accountable for the shortcomings of the
front line, or at least incapable of putting in place the required measures to ensure the illmannered actions do not occur.
Some bad customer behaviour may affect employees directly where these still have to
provide a service, possibly under worse conditions than normal, while feeling impotent to act
in the face of uncivil behaviour (Harris, Reynolds, 2003). To this may be added the negative
attitude engendered among the well mannered, well behaved, consumers, leaving the staff
frustrated and demotivated with the possible result that the service itself may suffer, setting in
motion a vicious circle that affects the whole consumer pool.
While it is very difficult to establish precise and quantifiable causal relationships, it
comes almost naturally to suppose that there will be a deterioration in the performance of the
company as a result of frustration and lack of motivation in the staff as well also as damage to
image and reputation and following from word of mouth criticisms from customers irritated
by bad manners that are not dealt with.
Lastly, the bad behaviour of some customers has effects that go beyond the boundaries
of the organisation, but which are equally, if not more, damaging. These spill over into
society as a whole. Having to observe badly mannered behaviour on the part of some
customers puts into high relief the levels of disregard for the rules, generates indifference and
disaffection and leads to an overall loss of trust. A perception arises of a kind of squalor in the
whole area of coexistence in the community, itself generating distrust and especially fear for
the future. As has been stated earlier, what is put in jeopardy is the social capital that a given
community is able to draw upon. It need hardly be said how essential this is for civilised
coexistence and, it must be added, for the business organisation itself.
This state of affairs causes outstanding problems for the company or concern, that not
only has the greatest of difficulty in counting on the contribution of its customers for the coproduction of a quality service, but is also faced with having to deal with the impact from
within and without of badly behaved customers (See Figure 1).
Figure 1 – The victims of bad customer behaviour
Bad customer behaviour
Other customers
Company staff
The performance of
the organisation
Society at large
Figure 2 – The vicious circle of bad customer behaviour
Badly-mannered
consumers
Poor quality
performance
High stress on
organization
Low competitive
edge
5. Consumer rudeness: an organization’s problem, a solution from the organization?
As for rudeness within the company, there are two approaches that can be taken, i) that of
prohibiting, controlling and cracking down on it or ii) that of spreading an awareness and
culture among the staff.
Choosing not to follow the first path, without going so far as to say that it is not
without its merits, this work will concentrate exclusively on the latter approach.
To combat in particular bad customer behaviour and its negative consequences, it
should be considered whether it is reasonable for entrepreneurial organisations to take up an
“educational” approach. The issue can be addressed by an examination of questions such as
the following.
a. What does it mean to “educate customers”?
b. Is it in principle acceptable to allocate an educational role to a business
organisation?
c. How could such a role be played out? What are the most effective types of
conduct that should be suggested?
a) What does it mean to “ educate customers”?
To answer this question, two preliminary questions have to be addressed, the first the role of
the customer in the production of the service and the second what meaning has to be attached
to the term “education”.
As regards the customer’s role in the production of the service it has been for some
time emphasised in the literature, and is supported by everyday experience, that the customer
is a pro-user, in the sense to a great or lesser extent takes an active part in the production of
the service (Normann, 1992).
It is not our intention here to dwell excessively on something that has become an
established feature of service management and quality.
We do however deem it worth repeating that the company has taken on the onus of
entering into “dialogue” with the customer so as to render him or her of the role they play and
in part introduce them to the production processes of the business.
We should also pause to say that when we speak of the “education” of the customer
we are not referring to this type of “dialogue” between the enterprise and the customer. It is
taken as read that every business operating in the service sector to great or to lesser effect
does in fact do this, if for no other reason than that of the technical requirements of production
which assign certain roles to the consumer.
The ”education” in question here goes beyond this “dialogue”, which as we say is not
in dispute, albeit being practiced with greater or lesser degrees of success.
The other premise is on the hand required to clarify which of the possible meanings of
the term “education” we have decided to adopt.
There are in reality at least three meanings to be ascribed to the term “education”:
i. the transmission of moral and cultural values from one
generation to another;
ii. the process of acquiring special skills in the area of
knowledge;
iii. the ability to observe correct conduct in dealings with
other persons.
What we are considering does not take in definition ii) which follows a logic of knowing how
to do rather than knowing how to be, save the area of “civic education” whereby people are
taught of the legal and socio-political principles upon which living in a community and in
relation to its institutions are based.
For our purposes the idea of education is that in iii) above, with regard to propriety,
manners, politeness, kindness, refined and gentlemanly conduct, etiquette and civilised
behaviour when using a service that is used at the same time by many other persons.
This usage does not excluded the use of the term as in i) above, which is a necessary
step for the achieving of good manners.
The horizon within which in particular the enterprise should operate in this area is that
of identifying the ways in which customers can be brought to recognise the value of good
behaviour in relation to others, the advantages that are to be gained for the operation of the
service as a whole and hence for each of its stakeholders.
From this point of view much weight will be put on the question of reciprocity as
regards good manners and correct conduct.
By proceeding along this path the company can take on the negative effects of bad
manners as previously described. Such effects are capable producing the serious risk of
underestimating the destructive power of bad manners by perceiving of them as mere off hand
but relatively unimportant conduct as compared with decidedly deviant behaviour, which
latter is paradoxically more easily combated with its more obvious negative impact.
Which forms do however such bad manners actually take? As has already been said,
they are manifest in impoliteness, rudeness, insolence, boorishness, arrogance, being offhanded, impertinence, vulgarity, lack of civility and general incivility. Such conduct impacts
negatively on the quality of the service as perceived by those that use the service and at the
same time by those approaching the service in the future, where such behaviour has had a
negative impact on the service such that, as often happens, it affects the structures through
which the service is channelled and produced.
To educate customers therefore means working to curb improper conduct.
It means working in this sense because all customers recognise the value of freedom,
recognise the right of others to use the service at its pro-tem state of optimal quality.
It means taking steps into the garden of cultural and moral values, where freedom is
the seen as the broadest expression of the general good.
In this sense good manners walk the path of sustainability, in the sense the term is
used by Amartya Sen in his “The Idea of Justice”, where sustainability is not just the
preservation of the standard of living for future generations, but involves the protection of
their freedom of choice in relation to things that they, not we, regard as worthy of
preservation (Sen, 2009).
Good conduct on the part of the customer thus operates within the tiny context of a
service as a seed in the field of respect for the freedom and rights of others, according to a
logic that reaches out from the individual everyday action to those of the community at large,
contributing to the reconstruction of a civilised social fabric.
b) The subsequent question led us to ask whether this could be a task for the
entrepreneurial organisation, given that usually this role is one fulfilled by the family
and the institutions
A reductive approach to the problem would be to seek out the guilty party responsible for the
state of affairs described in previous pages where we have sought to frame this sociological
phenomenon in a managerial class.
It would be easy, but useless, to find a scapegoat and just say that all the problems are
those of “society” in general or “the system”, according to a logic where nothing is other than
simply an end in itself.
By pointing the finger at the failure of schools or of the family, we will not, even they
are responsible, solve the problem, still less in the short term.
In truth, if business has taken upon itself the right to create styles of conduct that guide
the actions of persons and lead them along paths paved with feelings of impotence, and if they
have done so in despotic ways that invade personal life, there is no reason to suppose it cannot
now contribute to restricting such egocentric and depressing values of consumerism for its
own sake, largely of its own making.
But why should it do so?
Because it could thus perform a constructive role in society?
A few might be inclined to this view, but not many.
The real driving force for action can only be that of gaining a competitive edge and
hence an economic advantage.
A business concern should do so for the simple reason that the first competitor to
grasp this challenge will have qualities that the others lack. That is the bottom line.
Why should any company be the first to take the first step along this road. The answer
is because people, as can be seen from a variety of signs that are blowing in the wind,
appreciate those who take up arms for direct action designed to recover lost ground by
restoring a civic sense and the sense of belonging to a community.
Will they be up to the task? That is indeed another question.
The business concerns do however have in their armoury a great strength that they can
draw on, and that is the language of the consumers, a language that they themselves have
helped to generate.
It will not in any case be the scale of the problem that will halt the processes of
innovation, history shows us that even the most improbable task in business may prove
possible.
All that is needed is one thing, to want to do it, and for this the real conviction that the
approach will lead to a competitive advantage.
In reality, and although the cases are not numerous, some businesses in current
industry have already started on this path, including Barilla the pasta manufacturers, which
has established a “sustainability” project in seven areas in which the Community division
supports an educational approach aiming to promote healthy living, exercise, good diet and
responsibility for the environment.
There are also examples of “consumer education” to be found in the service sector,
where for instance the COOP is proposing a thirty year plan of Education for the Wellinformed Consumer. This project goes beyond the development of a critical sense that
informs the consumer in his choices, to embrace such themes and citizenship, cultural
diversity and legality.
The answer to the albeit in direct question has to be that true, innovative enterprise that
is willing to look to the long term will not let this opportunity slip, and there are already
companies for which such courses of action form part of their modus operandi.
c) What advice can be offered to business concerns intending to embark on this course of
action?
Having reached this point we would be failing in our duty if we were not to suggest possible
approaches to a programme to educate the consumer to act in accordance with good manners,
even if only by providing some preliminary ideas.
Before starting on such as task it is already clear that this will not be easy, for the
simple reason that it presupposes that there is the strength and means available to encourage
and produce well-mannered conduct on the part of the customer.
The customer is however the person that the marketing department placed above any
possible evaluation leading him, as such, to be able to conduct him or herself as he pleases
irrespective of the effect that the behaviour may have on other consumers.
Alongside strength and means there is also a need for a subtlety of action with
recourse to knowledge-based paths.
Including that is knowledge that “no man is an island” (as conceived by John Donne
and Thomas Merton) and hence that the quality of the society in which we live depends on the
interactions of each member of the community or, in the case of an individual service, each
participates in the production of the service together with each of the others.
This awareness brings with it the indirect advantage of increasing the indignation
customers may fell when face with bad behaviour on the part of other customers.
Such indignation is slow to make itself manifest, as people prefer a quiet life, though it
does have a negative impact on perceived quality and consequentially on the competitiveness
of and on the reputation of the enterprise in question.
This leads the customer to silently vote with his feet and chose other producers where
the service is produced in a competitive environment. It may on the other hand lead to a
growing sense of resignation in the consumer where the services are public and operating
under essentially monopolistic conditions. Such resignation will however break and overflow
into open conflict and tensions in relations with front line staff that often lack the means or
ability to solve problems where high levels of emotional intelligence are required (Goleman,
2006).
To get beyond the idea that anything goes, a reaffirmation is needed of the relationship
between rights and duties, where rights are irrevocably bound to a series of duties that ensure
these rights, though in reality rights and duties are just two sides of the same coin (Bobbio,
1990).
This means also having to get over that misplaced sense of respect that ends with the
justification of the choices of others even where they visibly and demonstrably damage the
individual’s own rights or those of others.
All things considered, the problem of customer bad manners can be dealt with by
means of checks and penalties, but this is only possible with increased company control that is
disapproving of such conduct in such circumstances.
The company and its staff can never take the place or exercise the role of social
control as commonly accepted rule of people living together in the community, according to
forms of “positive conformism” that emphasises the power of the environment from which
behaviour develops (Rampini, 2011).
The business enterprise may however do much to generate the desired behaviour by
communication that makes clear the extent of the community and is able to touch a chord with
the individual of the importance of his being a part of a community.
What emerges from our observations is the need for communication that is at once
intense and penetrating, while being subtle, simple and attractive designed to cause people to
reflect and to act in harmony with what can be regarded as a common asset or value.
The problem is a long way from having been solved. Quite apart from the differences
in viewpoints on the evaluations brought to the table, the construction of communication of
such kind is confronted by the whole gamut of linguistic delicacy and terminology that has
the ability to change the world, but may do so in one way or in quite another.
One route that could be followed is that of art, in itself capable of touching the
individual and leading him or her to reflect on the improvement that could be gained to the
quality of life that simple respect could bring with it, with no cost to anyone.
This may be done by tapping in to people’s creative intelligence, to their ability to
explore every aspect of what is beauty.
The reality is that it does not take much to change conduct, sometimes all that is
needed is just a few words and a few images, while the difficult thing is to frame these words
and images successfully. Difficult but not impossible.
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