Rude customers can be money in the bank for servers, Calgary study suggests

There's an upside for servers getting mistreated by rude customers they receive nearly double the tips from other patrons in the restaurant, according to new research from the University of Calgary.

"Customers tipped 83 per cent higher when they witnessed the mistreatment than when they witnessed a neutral interaction," said SandyHershcovis, aHaskayneSchool of Business professor.

"So they were willing to financially compensate for the bad behaviour of fellow customers."

• 'The more I cried, the more they laughed': Rude customers part of the job for retail workers

Hershcovis is the lead researcher of the study recently published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. It is titled "When Fellow Customers Behave Badly: Witness Reactions to Employee Mistreatment by Customers."

The researchershired an actor to play the rude customer and Hershcovis's grad student played the server. Another researcher observed how other customers reacted.

"It was incivility, so people on their cellphone while talking to servers, people using sarcastic tones and those sorts of things. So it wasn't really terrible stuff," she said.

Still, the results were remarkable to the team.

"Only 11 per cent of people intervened but, after the [rude] customer left, 75 per cent of people said something supportive to the victim, to the server," Hershcovis said.

In addition, they tipped substantially more, offered better evaluations of the overall customer serviceand were generally more polite to the mistreated server.

'Service with a smile' required

But there's a catch, Hershcovis cautions.

"When the server talked back [to the rude customer], they lost all those benefits," she said.

"When the server took matters into their own hands, customers no longer felt empathetic towards that server and they weren't willing to tip more. The server does have to maintain that service-with-a-smile attitude in order to gain those hidden benefits from being mistreated."

• Online attacks prompt Alberta brewery to fire critical customer

Hershcovis said real-life events inspired her study into the impact of watching other customers act rudely.

"It actually comes somewhat from my own experiences, back in the day 25 years ago, I worked in retail myself and I had to deal with a few choice customers," she toldCBC Calgary News at 6on Thursday.

"One of the things that helped was fellow customers came up to me afterwards and sort of empathized, and said 'Oh my god, I can't believe that happened.' I sort of wondered, how do customers react when they witness fellow customers mistreat servers?"

• MORE ALBERTA NEWS |How much each MLA claims for living expenses in Edmonton
• MORE ALBERTA NEWS |Kidnapping charge dismissed against former Calgary police officer

With files from CBC Calgary News at 6