How Do You Treat Your Black Customers?

As a child, I hated going to the barbershop.

It was not because I objected to chit-chat with strangers—I was the loud, sociable kid whose parents thought was cute and everyone else probably found grating. It was not because I feared scissors or razors—to this day, no sharp object or medical procedure has ever given me an ounce of fear.

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Rather, it was because of the burden I believed to be mandated on all barbershop customers. Upon leaving my house once for a haircut, my grandmother scoffed at my appearance, noting that if I did not arrive looking sharp with well-combed hair, the barber would not take my concern for hair seriously and thus not feel bad about giving me a bad haircut.

You wouldn’t be able to convince the 2012, adult me of the ills of a great appearance, but the opposite was true of me as a child. Why would I ever stress over my wardrobe and hairstyle, especially when going to the barbershop, where they would be cutting all the hair off—and letting it fall into the nice, fashionable clothes I had on?

Even though my attitude towards clothes has changed, the lunacy of my grandmother’s "policy" still resonates, especially given my current role as a customer management analyst. Of course we all have customers that we financially value more than others, but the idea that we would tailor our service levels based on some superficial, trivially-guided conclusion about the customer’s self-worth is baffling. It is the exact opposite of what all the customer experience "elite" are doing.

And yet, even though I generally look back on my grandmother’s claim as a greater product of paranoia than fact, there is probably some fire with the smoke. All customer-facing employees—and their supervisors—are human, and humans naturally gravitate towards certain habits.

Even if barbers really do tailor service based on the appearance of their customers, I at least know it is something I can control. I can wear nice clothes, comb my freshly-cleaned hair, and I’m on the path to an excellent customer experience and a great looking haircut.

But what about those whose customer value is identified by things they cannot change?

That is the question at the heart of a new study, which confirms that racial stereotyping is not simply a distant memory of a troubled past. A whopping 38.5% of waiters in a sample of North Carolina restaurants are guilty of discriminating against black customers.

That discrimination emerges in the form of poor service and racist chatter, with waiters playing games like "pass the black table" while referring to sudden influxes of black customers as "blackouts."

Attributed to the presumption that black customers are some combination of poor tippers, demanding and rude, the level of discrimination reveals how far away we remain from true equality of treatment in society. It also reveals the extent to which human predisposition impacts the quality of service provided to certain classes of customers, a fact which runs harshly counter to the "every customer is our most important customer" and "the customer is always right" creeds.

More than 52% of waiters admitted seeing others discriminate against black customers, while only 10.5% say they have never encountered any form of racialized discourse on the job.

And though it might take a startling study and an eye-catching headline to bring this form of discrimination to the attention of the American majority, it has become an accepted way of life for many black patrons. Some such restaurant goers confirm they have been refused service, asked to endure particularly-long wait periods for tables and even mistaken for valets and bathroom attendants.

As a result, the vicious circle continues. Frustrated with the poor service they occasionally experience (and more-than-occasionally believe themselves to experience due to sensitivity over past racially-motivated encounters), a segment of the black population likely does not tip well. As such, those servers who discriminate against black customers feel justified in their continued discrimination, and those opposed to such discrimination have limited ammunition to change minds.

In its simplest sense, this is a legitimate consequence of the tipping policy in American restaurants. While we like to think only of the gratuity’s positive impact—if waiters know they can make a pretty premium on their salary for good service, they will strive for excellence—there is also a negative consequence: if the waiters do not feel there will be ample return on their effort, they have no incentive to excel.

Once a certain tip becomes an "expected" part of the salary rather than a perk, service levels risk adjusting around that baseline—a 15% gratuity is no longer a sign that the waiter went above-and-beyond expectations but instead a near-mandatory addition to the bottom of the bill for average, if not slightly below average, service.

And when the presumed tip is below that which would typically be treated as a baseline, the corresponding service level will likely fall below the standard.

In nearly all cases, the burden of this challenge rests with the organization and its management. While some waiters are simply racist and must assume accountability for that mindset, the organization, at the end of the day, needs to establish a core level of service that all employees must deliver, regardless of the potential for tips. Employees must be bought into the organization—not simply the number written on the receipt’s "gratuity" line—and see exemplary customer service as a win 100% of the time.

An organization’s investment in a quality customer experience extends far beyond the tip line, and it needs to mandate that all representatives understand the importance. Snubbing a black customer, a grungy teenage customer or anyone else who looks like a poor tipper is a cardinal sin because it undermines the entire organization. When bad service is delivered, regardless of whether the bill is for $2000 or $2, the organization suffers. And if the staff does not seen the suffering as a far greater hit than the horror of receiving a 12% tip, he is not engaged in the restaurant’s business. He has no business serving its customers.

Customers, at their core, are selfish. It is therefore reasonable to assume that as long as most customers, particularly the most valuable ones, are treated well, the organization will enjoy a favorable customer service reputation. If someone felt compelled to leave a 25% tip after a stunning restaurant experience, is he really going to avoid returning because another family had to wait too long for a table?

Perhaps not (but perhaps so…people do object to racism, prejudice and immaturity, after all), but it is also important to stress the extent to which quality customer experiences need to be ingrained in the fabric of the organization. If the culture does not advise waiters to satisfy the customers at all costs, and instead allows them to "follow the tip money," it is likely that elements of the customer experience will break down. Those who are not to receive the full impact of a big tipper’s gratuity, for instance, could represent bottlenecks in the machine and therefore produce an inconsistent customer experience that is not always to the satisfied customer’s liking. As a result, there is no guarantee that every visit to the restaurant will warrant a 25% tip.

It also goes without saying that the era of the empowered, social customer has cracked the insularity of the customer experience. True, an individual customer might be every bit as self-centered as he was before the rise of Facebook and Twitter, but he now bases his personal decisions on opinions he would previously never hear.

When my friend and I visited a very popular, very well-reviewed restaurant in the culinary-driven Hyde Park, New York area, we were appalled by the caliber of service we received, especially given that we intended to spend quite a bit of money on drinks, appetizers, entrees and desserts. Perhaps because we were younger than the typical patrons, the waitress barely checked in—instead of feeling pressured to buy a drink or appetizer, we had to beg her to put in our order.

We shared that experience on Yelp, and now a restaurant with a classy menu and a reputation for excellence has a permanent black mark.

When high-powered, big-tipping customers are looking for a place to spend their money, it is quite plausible that our review will send them elsewhere.

Now consider the impact of systematically driving a substantial chunk of an entire race to share the same ill-will.