Environment Matters

We all are intuitively aware of how environment can effect employee behavior, and nowhere is this more critical than in service centric organizations. In fact, as consumers, we tend to assess service satisfaction via a series of “clues”, including:

Functional clues: The efficiency and quality of the service.

Mechanical clues: Design and atmosphere (which sets service expectations).

Humanic clues: The demeanor and emotional aspect of the employees.

Studies have shown that the lowest customer satisfaction occurs when negative humanic cues (such as cold and unresponsive employees) don’t live up the promise of a warm and hospitable environment. But what about the effect the environment itself may have on an employee attitudes?

Nearly twenty ago, Mary Jo Bitner published a groundbreaking framework on this interplay in the Journal of Marketing. Her findings summarized what one might expect:

“The framework suggests that a variety of objective environmental factors are perceived by both customers and employees and that both groups may respond cognitively, emotionally, and physiologically to the environment. Those internal responses to the environment influence the behavior of individual customers and employees in the servicescape and affect social interactions between and among customers and employees.” ~ Source: Journal of Marketing, (April 1992, pg. 59)

I can personally attest to the accuracy of this statement, and here’s a personal story to back it up.

Last week I had the pleasure of taking a quick trip to Dallas to visit with one of my clients. As you might imagine, I chose American Airlines as my carrier given their dominate position in that geography. Flying out of San Francisco, I arrived only to find that nearly every American flight in the terminal was either cancelled or delayed due to mechanical problems.

My own flight was perpetually delayed via unhelpful and robotic fifteen minute announcements that stated, “we still don’t know what’s wrong and we’ll give you an update as soon as we know anything further.” This continued for three hours until its eventual cancellation. Being a seasoned traveller, I called the 800 number and quickly rebooked on a later flight. Long story short, the later flight was also delayed due to mechanical problems and I was finally crammed into a middle seat, back row, and forced to check my carryon. Total delay time? Six hours. Lovely.

This sounds just like every other bad travel story, I know, but this is where environment came into play. The plane was old and dirty, the bathrooms disheveled, the customers grumpy and the flight attendants miserable. Not once were the words, “I’m sorry”, uttered by the crew. Sitting in the back, I overheard the flight attendants lamenting their fate of having to fly these “old birds” and dealing with ungrateful passengers who had no idea how hard it was to work with outdated tools and technology. They cursed as they tried to drag carts down the aisles, wheels sticking. It was pretty awful.

I would have chalked this up to one bad flight if it were not for all of the other flights that were grounded due to mechanical failures. My flight home the next day was on an even older plane, and the gem of this trip occurred was when a flight attendant told a freezing passenger:

“The next time you want a blanket, go buy one at WalMart.“

Now she could have been referring to the fact that they were disgusting balls of faded red cotton that hadn’t been washed in three years, or perhaps she just was sick and tired of fetching them for passengers. No matter. But what did strike me was the same curse-muttering frustration of having to work in such an old and uncomfortable environment.

Given the state of the economy, I believe we’ve lost focus on the importance that environment plays in employee behavior and customer satisfaction. And as the recovery continues, my sense is that consumers will rapidly begin to vote with their wallets if employers don’t start improving employee environments and customer service. When I was given the choice to purchase a flight for next week, I elected to spend a bit more to not fly on American again. I instead chose Virgin America because their cabins are spotless, their technology market-leading and (as a result) their flight attendants happy and customer-centric.

Now it’s your turn. Do you think environment matters? Do you believe that employees attitudes correlate with their working conditions? Share your stories below and let’s keep the conversation going.