I can't stand it, I know you planned it.

—The Beastie Boys, Sabotage

The message was heartbreaking.

A customer service professional contacted me and admitted she was deliberately providing poor service. It went against her core beliefs, but she did it anyway.

Gaby (not her real name) wanted my advice.

I didn't have any great options to share with Gaby. When she explained why she was sabotaging her customers' experience, I could understand and empathize.

My sense was that Gaby is a good employee who was caught in a bad situation. Read on to discover why otherwise good employees intentionally make service worse, and learn what you can do about it.

Problem #1: Toxic culture

Gaby worked in a toxic culture.

Her colleagues laughed at her when she went out of her way to help a customer. This pressured Gaby to choose between dealing with a customer's anger or getting judged by her peers. 

This is a fairly common issue.

My book, Getting Service Right, explores the causes of poor customer service. One story in the book is about Camille, who like Gaby found herself deliberately providing poor customer service to avoid getting ostracized by her coworkers.

Things didn't improve for Camille until she changed jobs and started working in an organizational culture that valued her commitment to serving customers.

It was the best advice I could give Gaby—find a new job if you can.

Toxic culture is a wide-spread problem. In 2019, I conducted a study on toxic employees. It revealed 83 percent of customer service employees have at least one toxic coworker.

That's four times the average rate that employees in other jobs face.

There are probably one or two ringleaders in any toxic work environment. Their toxicity spreads and influences others to do a poor job.

Your likely best option is to fire them now.

Problem #2: Bad bosses

"You're not going to get away with that shit if you work here."

The fast food manager who said that was interviewing a job applicant. I overheard the conversation because the manager conducted the interview in the dining room at the table right next to mine.

(Side note: conducting interviews in crowded public places is apparently a thing.)

Managers like this demotivate their teams. They upbraid and embarrass employees in front of customers. So many employee decisions are overridden that employees stop trying.

Gaby had a bad boss.

She explained that her coworkers weren't the only ones who pressured her to provide poor customer service. Her supervisor did, too.

You probably aren't reading this if you're a bad boss. But you might have a manager or supervisor who works for you that is. And things will only get worse if you don't put a stop to it.

There’s no magic to detecting a bad boss. Just talk to your employees. Listen and observe.

Problem #3: Chronically broken systems

"They won’t let me escalate it until it’s been six business days."

That’s Sherry. She was a friendly, but completely unhelpful customer service rep that I wrote about in Getting Service Right. Sherry was unhelpful because there was literally nothing she could do to help me. Her company’s strict policies even prevented Sherry from transferring me to a supervisor.

A lot of customer service work involves a certain amount of helplessness.

Customers come to you with problems you didn't create. They're emotional, and they direct those emotions at you. You're expected to deal with their outbursts and make them happy, but you often aren't empowered to do the right thing, which makes customers even angrier.

The movie Groundhog Day is all too real for customer service employees.

The solution is helping customer service agents re-discover their agency. Ask them to share the biggest obstacles that make it difficult to do their jobs. Work with them to find solutions. Be their advocate when other departments need to get involved.

And don’t even think of saying that’s a lost cause. Because as soon as you give up, you’ve given your employees permission to do the same thing.

Take Action

Don't assume an employee is a lost cause.

The next time you see an employee providing poor customer service, ask yourself why. Observe them working. Talk to them and truly listen.

Most employees want to do a good job. You can help them get there if you identify the obstacles standing in their way.