There’s a difference between serving a customer and actually feeling responsible for what happens to them.

A recent study published in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services took a closer look at that difference. Researchers studied 230 matched pairs of frontline employees and customers to examine what they call customer stewardship, essentially the degree to which employees feel responsible for looking out for the customer’s interests. Stronger stewardship was associated with better customer experiences, greater engagement and even more tolerance when a service failure occurred.

That last finding is especially interesting because things are going to go wrong in any service business. An appointment gets missed. A project takes longer than expected. Somebody forgets to call. A customer receives information that turns out to be wrong. We can work hard to prevent those things, but we’re never going to eliminate all of them.

What happens after the mistake is often what the customer remembers.

Most of us have dealt with an employee who explained the problem, apologized and then pretty much left us to figure out what to do next. We’ve also dealt with someone who took ownership of the situation, found out what could be done, kept us informed and stayed involved until it was resolved. The problem may have been exactly the same, but the experience certainly wasn’t.

The research suggests that kind of ownership can affect the broader customer relationship. Customers dealing with employees who demonstrated stronger stewardship became more engaged and were more willing to tolerate an occasional service failure. That makes sense. Once customers believe someone is genuinely looking out for them, they’re more likely to give that person, and probably the company, some benefit of the doubt when everything doesn’t go perfectly.

There’s a service sales connection here as well. The best service salespeople I’ve seen don’t approach every conversation wondering what they can sell. They’re paying attention to what the customer is trying to accomplish and looking for ways to help. Sometimes that leads to a recommendation the customer hadn’t considered. Other times it may mean explaining why the more expensive option really isn’t necessary.

Customers figure out pretty quickly whether someone is trying to help them make a good decision or simply trying to increase the sale. Once they believe the salesperson has their interests in mind, recommendations tend to carry more credibility.

The researchers found enough variation in stewardship to group employees into “Champions,” “Middle of the Roaders” and “Laggards.” That raises an important issue for managers because ownership isn’t entirely up to the employee. The environment matters too. People learn whether they have the authority to solve reasonable customer problems, whether management supports good judgment and whether spending a little extra time taking care of someone is appreciated or viewed as getting in the way of the next transaction.

If employees have to track down three people for approval every time something unusual happens, taking ownership gets difficult. And if nearly everything they’re measured on involves short-term sales numbers, some are eventually going to start viewing customers that way too.

Customer stewardship doesn’t mean giving customers whatever they want. It means caring enough about the outcome to stay involved and do what you reasonably can to make sure the customer is taken care of.

The research may give that behavior a formal name, but customers have recognized it forever. They call it great service.

Steve