Restaurants rely on satisfied customers for repeat visits, leading many to continuously raise their service standards to meet and exceed customers’ expectations. However, service quality that is too high can backfire, with behaviours such as kneeling and excessive politeness arousing suspicion and discomfort in diners. Filling a research gap and providing practical guidance for restaurant managers and operators, Dr Yuchen Xu and Professor Catherine Cheung of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), working with two co-authors, offer a novel theoretical lens for examining how customers respond to such “over-service” in restaurants.
