• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, December 10, 2010

One of the many fallouts of a bad economy is that workers in all kinds of service industries, many themselves feeling intensified stress, are dealing with customers who are in the same mindset.

And airline flight attendants aren't the only ones freaking out these days.

The last few days have seen media reports of two incidents involving QSR employees lashing back at customers -- actually, one an alleged instance of a Chicago-based McDonald's employee having spit at a customer (in the news because the customer has now filed a lawsuit), and the other an undeniable case of a Hastings, Neb. Pizza Hut employee having inserted the message "Careful this gal is a bitch" in a computer-printed receipt, which caused the customer to threaten a lawsuit. Another recent instance that hit the Web: In mid-November, a Sacramento, Calif.-based Burger King employee inserted double "fuck you" messages in a customer's receipt.

QSRs and restaurants in general, are hardly alone in this boat -- and in truth, there seems to be no hard data showing that such incidences are happening in restaurants or other service industries more often now than prior to the recession. However, according to a CareerBuilder.com survey conducted earlier this year, 37% of restaurant and other hospitality workers report challenges staying motivated, 26% feel no loyalty toward their current employer, and more than a third say that they're feeling higher-than-average stress at work and experiencing higher workloads.

And as marketers within all industries are keenly aware, in today's digitally connected world, isolated instances can quickly become the subject of widespread media coverage and fodder for social media discussions and bloggers -- resulting in at least some temporary damage to a brand, and sometimes more lasting or significant damage.

Employee act-outs are particularly troublesome for QSR restaurant brands, which not only have high visibility, but tend to have heavily franchise-oriented business models, points out Dennis Lombardi, EVP of food strategies for retail and foodservice consulting firm WD Partners.

"While you could argue that the stresses caused by economic conditions may be contributing to creation of more such incidences, they are not new to either the foodservice or other service industries, and the foodservice numbers overwhelmingly show that these are very much exceptions, rather than the rule," says Lombardi. However, while QSR brands provide clear customer service and training guidelines for their franchisees and "do all they can to help franchisees avoid inappropriate employee behavior," a franchise system by definition limits their control over day-to-day franchise operations, including employee hiring, training and monitoring practices, he points out.

Furthermore, in the current economy, mid-level and even higher-level income jobs have in general been more affected than lower-income jobs. And while overall restaurant industry employment has declined, QSRs and fast-casual restaurants have been less affected than higher-priced restaurants, notes Lombardi -- likely meaning that there are now larger numbers of employees in lower-priced restaurants who have lost higher-paying jobs and may be feeling the stress of being under-employed. "In any service industry, the more employees feel that it's a job rather than a career, the greater the opportunity for inappropriate behavior to happen," Lombardi notes.

QSR franchises are obligated to discipline or fire employees who violate standards, and leading QSR brands, of course, deal on a corporate level with incidents that become the focus of national or worldwide attention. Major chains are adept at employing crisis management strategies, and have learned to closely monitor brand discussions in the digital space and head off or minimize the impact of incidents with true brand-affecting potential.

Case in point: To address the crisis created when a video of one store's employees contaminating food during preparation was posted on YouTube, Domino's Pizza immediately created its own Twitter account dedicated to promoting positive coverage of the brand, interacting with customers and thanking them for their support. Domino's also posted its own YouTube video featuring its chief executive reinforcing the brand's quality standards and apologizing for the isolated lapse. At the same time, management/branding experts note that QSRs and other franchise-based services can help by, if necessary, intensifying reach-out and management practices support to franchise owners.

In a recent Restaurant Hospitality article addressing the high turnover of restaurant workers and likelihood that many will bolt when the economy improves, Jan Ferri-Reed, president of KeyGroup, a consultancy specializing in helping managers with employee training and assessment, confirms that "the anemic economy has undermined morale in the restaurant workplace." She advises operators to increase opportunities for employees to provide feedback, work with them and accelerate skills cross-training to ensure that workloads are balanced and that new employees are in place to take over vacated jobs, and increase positive reinforcement for good employees.

As for incidents involving employees using technology, like receipt generation systems, for inappropriate purposes, Lombardi says that any up-to-date system has built-in protection devices that enable only restaurant owners or managers to access content-changing capabilities, via passwords. "But restaurant brands can't control whether franchise owners and managers are protecting their passwords," he points out. So again, corporate best practices education for franchises may be the best solution.