The need for customer education in high people-density services: a new role for service providers?

Purpose: in recent decades a general deterioration in behaviour and the loss of good manners seem to be increasingly features of our society. This loss of manners has repercussions on people’s conduct as consumers or service users, and in particular those companies that provide high people-density services. The paper therefore seeks to define and clarify the notion of the badly-mannered customer and then work out some ideas of how the loss of manners and civic sense rife among today’s customers can be addressed, all with the aim of improving the quality of output. Design/Methodology/Approach: the methodological approach is exploratory in nature. The preferred method for data collection is direct observation. Beside the descriptive part, the work also makes a preliminary attempt to develop some prescriptive proposals. Findings: our concept of bad customer behaviour consists in conduct characterised by lack of respect for or thoughtfulness towards other customer and others in general. Such conduct is neither particularly serious nor that is carried out with the actual intention to cause damage. It is then argued both on causes and on effects of badly-mannered customers. Managerial implications: suggestions are offered in order to help managers deal with bad customer behavior in service settings. Originality/Value: the paper introduces a new kind of consumer behavior, badly-mannered customer, which is milder than those currently considered in the service management literature, such as aberrant, dysfunctional or disruptive consumer behavior.