MZMORALE ZEROthe antithesis of employee engagement
DIRECTIVE 037 / POWER

MAKE THE CUSTOMER RIGHT

Protect the customer relationship by ensuring only one side of it is allowed to behave badly.

Require employees to remain polite through hostility, insults and unreasonable demands. Escalate only when the customer experience is at risk. When the employee experience is at risk, offer coaching on de-escalation and emotional resilience.

Primary: POWERWORTHBELONGING
RATIONALE
Customer tolerance protects revenue in the interaction where the mistreatment occurs and moves the cost somewhere less visible.
SUCCESS INDICATOR
Employees learn exactly how much disrespect the organization will absorb on their behalf before a customer becomes difficult enough to matter.
COMMON FAILURE
Setting enforceable boundaries for customer mistreatment and supporting employees when service expectations conflict with basic interpersonal treatment.
STATUS
Canonical / approved

Reconstructed Handbook series.

THE UNFORTUNATE PART

Unfortunately, the research…

Claim

Customer mistreatment is associated with negative emotional, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes for service employees, including emotional exhaustion, lower satisfaction and turnover intentions.

Evidence

Meta-analytic evidence across service settings links customer mistreatment with employee strain, attitudes and behavioral outcomes; related workplace-aggression research also finds harmful effects across perpetrator sources.

Strength: Strong

Sources

The Directive is satire. The research summary is not. Evidence is stated separately and qualified to the underlying literature rather than treated as proof of the joke.

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