Is the Customer Always Right?

A study challenging the long-standing mantra “the customer is always right" determined that in order to better support employee mental health, restaurant operators should have clear policies stating that customers' uncivil behavior will not be tolerated.“For decades, a customer could be uncivil, angry, yelling or just plain wrong, and employees were expected to deal with it because it was just part of the business," said Dr. Melissa Baker, associate professor and chair of the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  "Now, I’m not sure we can do that anymore. We want to take care of the customer—that’s super important, but if a customer is being uncivil, rude and aggressive, you also really need to make sure that you have the employee’s back."

Baker and co-author Kawon Kim of the University of South Carolina  conducted the study of customer incivility in the…