A new study out of the University of British Columbia offers a sobering warning to anyone who’s ever felt like lashing out in frustration at someone working in customer service.

It reveals that North Americans customer service agents are much more likely to take revenge against nasty customers than their global counterparts.

Authors studied how frontline employees at luxury hotels in Vancouver and Beijing reacted to customer abuse, using small focus groups.

Canadian agents responded by retaliation, things like giving incorrect information or serving cold food, whereas the Chinese agents were more likely to reduce their general quality of service, to all customers.

The message here is clear, said co-author and UBC Sauder School of Business Professor Daniel Skarlicki: If you are rude and impolite to staff, you’re doing so at your own peril.

“They maybe won’t actually give you the information you need. They might actually send you in the wrong direction,” he said, adding that things can get even worse when it comes to the food service industry.

“In restaurants, we have evidence of employees spitting in your hamburger,” Skarlicki said.

The research suggests that culture plays a significant role in how frontline workers deal with customer abuse. But where customer mistreatment of frontline workers didn’t differ much between countries, reaction to it did.

The paper found that North Americans took to sabotage 20 per cent more, whereas Chinese workers were 19 per cent more likely to feel “a lack of enthusiasm” in their jobs.

Skarlicki said Canadians take a colder stance to the people who abuse them on the job, zeroing in on individuals and taking a surgical approach to abuse.

He added that managers need to be aware of cultural differences when expanding operations across the Pacific.

“Chinese don’t blame the transgressor. They blame the system – the company or customers they serve,” Skarlicki said.

The results will be published in the journal Personnel Psychology.

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