Do all customers receive the same level of service by providers in business?

According to Stetson research published in the Journal of Business Ethics, the answer is a definitive “no.”

The findings of “Discrimination in Services: How Service Recovery Efforts Change with Customer Accent” support that customers speaking with an accent are discriminated against. The reason: Employees may evaluate customers as both less credible and less competent depending on their accent. Further, the implications are far-ranging for both customers and the service industry.

The research paper was co-authored by Carol Azab, PhD, associate professor of marketing at Stetson University, and Jonas Holmqvist, PhD, associate professor of marketing at Kedge Business School in Talence, France.

This is one of the first studies that examines how frontline employees or service providers evaluate customers with accents, as well as issues with grammar accuracy in speech. By contrast, previous studies have examined the opposite — how customers rate or evaluate service providers that have a different ethnicity, language or an accent.

The Journal of Business Ethics is a prestigious peer-reviewed academic journal covering methodological and disciplinary aspects of ethical issues related to business.

“When manipulating grammar accuracy and accent, we found that both affect rapport evaluation in different paths. Grammar accuracy affects perceptions of customer expertise. While speaking with accent affects credibility of claim.”

Managerial Insights

The research findings highlight important implications for managers, with two main managerial insights, Azab noted.

“The first key managerial insight consists of uncovering an important moral problem in current business practices. Our findings show that discrimination against minority customers is a common practice, unconscious though it may be, and that results both in less satisfactory treatment during interactions with the business as well as in less favorable outcomes,” Azab explained.

“Having identified this managerial problem, our second key managerial insight attempts to alleviate this moral problem by identifying how managers may act to reduce discriminatory practices through cultural intelligence.”

Recommendations

Given the direct influence cultural intelligence has on employee rapport, the study results indicate that businesses are likely to benefit from including tests of cultural intelligence when hiring new service employees, Azab cited.

“Our findings lend support to the belief of extending hiring criteria when recruiting service employees to go beyond education, social skills, credentials and experience,” she said. “We recognize that efforts designed to increase diversity in recruitment can be resisted by employees, but we posit that it represents an important part of reducing discrimination of customer segments.

“Furthermore, we also argue that service managers should consider training their service employees to judge with fairness and overcome any personal positive or negative bias they might have. This kind of training should enable service employees to pass beyond stereotypes to provide equal service to customers regardless of background and accent.”

A final managerial recommendation: “It is equally important to foster a culture of acceptance, diversity celebration and equal appreciation to different backgrounds, cultures and languages,” Azab concluded.

-Michael Candelaria