Journal of the Association for Consumer Research
People from underrepresented ethnic and racial groups tend to rate poor customer service less negatively than white people, according to new peer-reviewed research led by Associate Professor of Marketing Samantha Cross, an expert in consumer behavior and family decision-making. Her research, with co-authors Stephanie Dellande (Menlo College, San Francisco), Sterling Bone (Utah State University), Glenn Christensen (Brigham Young University), and the late Jerome Williams (Rutgers University), was published in a recent issue of the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.
A summary of that research has been published in The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good. Read the article
Many companies in the service sector, such as banks and airlines, use customer satisfaction surveys so they can figure out how to improve their operations. There’s an implicit assumption that the feedback given will accurately reflect the actual quality of the service provided.
Companies may also assume that customers, regardless of their socioeconomic background, will give similar evaluations for good service – and that people will recognize poor or discriminatory service when they experience it.