Greetings are expected in customer service. They’re intended to make customers feel welcome and are the starting point for building rapport.

A field study proves that how we greet customers has a big impact.

One greeting routinely gets ignored. Another greeting completely changes customers' demeanors. The timing of a customer service greeting is also crucial.

This study can help you set clear standards for how customers should be greeted and when.

A smiling coffee shop employee is greeting a customer who is waving and smiling back.

About the study

The study consisted of 401 customer service observations at a large coffee chain, spread out over four locations in the greater San Diego area. My goal was to answer three questions:

Are customers regularly greeted?
When should employees greet customers?
Does smiling have a positive effect on customers?

The coffee shop chain was chosen because it has clear service standards and a regular service pattern that allowed for consistent observations.

Customers enter the store to either pick up a mobile order or place a new order with a cashier. Employees are expected to greet customers as they enter the store and the cashier should greet customers as they approach the counter.

I sat inside each store at a table with a visual line of sight to customers entering and also the cashier. This allowed me to observe how customers were greeted as they entered and as they approached the ordering counter.

Study results

The study confirmed a few long-held beliefs while also revealing some surprises. One twist is that customers should not be greeted immediately as they enter a store.

Question 1: Are customers regularly greeted?

No. Only 47.5% of customers were greeted as they entered the store. It got better when customers approached a cashier. They greeted customers 86.2% of the time.

Customers only returned 54.3% of greetings offered as they entered the store. They were friendlier with cashiers, returning 82.7% of cashier greetings.

Question 2: When should employees greet customers?

Greeting customers immediately when they enter a store was more likely to have a negative impact than a positive one.

I call these indirect greetings. An employee called out “Welcome” or something similar as soon as a customer entered the store. These greetings confused customers. Many were unsure who had greeted them. Others simply didn’t notice or hear the greeting.

The data shows that employees should wait until customers are within 10 feet of them to offer a greeting. I call these direct greetings.

A direct greeting consisted of an employee waiting until a customer was directly in front of them, usually within 10 feet. The employee made eye contact, and greeted customers in a way that the customer was aware of the greeting.

Customers were nearly twice as likely to return a direct greeting than an indirect one.

A graphic that shows 69.5% of customers returned a direct greeting and 37.5% of customers returned an indirect greeting.

Lei was one employee I observed who provided a great example. She was stationed at her store's mobile pick-up counter, approximately 30 feet from the front door. Lei waited for customers to approach within 10 feet before giving them a warm and friendly greeting. Her direct greetings had an overwhelmingly positive effect on customers.

Question 3: Does smiling have a positive effect on customers?

Yes. A greeting offered with a smile had a significant effect on customer demeanors. Customers almost never smiled unless an employee smiled at them first.

Graphic that shows 69.4% of customers smiled when an employee greeted them with a smile, while just 2.9% of customers smiled when an employee greeted them without a smile.

Despite common beliefs about the importance of smiling, employees only smiled 62.0% of the time when greeting customers. That improved to 77.8% when employees greeted customers directly.

Bonus question: Are mobile customers less friendly?

My hypothesis was mobile customers would be less likely to return an employee greeting. This idea came from a previous coffee shop visit where I watched most mobile customers walk in, ignore employees, pick up their order, and leave.

The numbers tell a different story.

To make a direct comparison between mobile and non-mobile order customers, I only counted the greeting offered as a customer entered the store. That data shows mobile customers are just as likely to return a greeting as a customer who places an order with a cashier.

Mobile customers: 54.5%
Cashier customers: 54.1%

In retrospect, what I was really observing during my previous visit was the difference between direct and indirect greetings. Mobile customers who received a direct greeting returned the greeting 84.3% of the time.

Conclusions

The data proves a direct greeting offered with eye contact and a smile has a positive effect on customers. It also reveals that indirect greetings are ineffective.

Companies should implement these service standards to improve service quality:

Greet customers directly when they're within 10 feet
Smile and make eye contact

Companies should not require that customers be greeted as soon as they enter a store or restaurant. These indirect greetings are disorienting and do not have a positive impact on customers.