Customer reception: knowing when to stop a process that no longer helps
At reception, a check already underway or a partially completed form can become a reason to continue, even when new information makes that route unsuitable. The management question is specific: how can teams be allowed to stop a process without treating a change of direction as evidence of poor work?
What the literature establishes
Hal R. Arkes and Catherine Blumer (1985, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes) investigated the sunk cost effect: a prior investment of money, effort or time can increase the tendency to continue an action. Their findings highlight, among other things, the desire not to appear wasteful of resources already committed. For customer reception, this suggests a risk to investigate, rather than an effect already demonstrated in this setting: completing a process to preserve the apparent value of work already done.
When responsibility reinforces persistence
Barry M. Staw (1976, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance) showed, in an investment decision experiment, that personal responsibility for an initial choice could encourage further commitment following negative outcomes. The mechanism therefore extends beyond the amount of resources committed: continuing can also serve to justify one's own decision. In customer reception, a hypothesis worth testing is that proposing another route becomes harder when it implicitly means acknowledging that one initiated the first.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that the process should change as soon as a difficulty appears. That would confuse past costs, which cannot be recovered, with the future consequences of switching: repeating a check, losing useful information or jeopardising a regulatory requirement. A sound decision concerns the work still to be done and its usefulness, not the need to retrospectively justify time already spent. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence does not establish
These studies do not directly measure interactions between reception staff and customers, let alone within Zurich organisations. They cannot establish how frequently processes are continued unnecessarily or define a universal stopping point. A lengthy process is therefore not enough to diagnose escalation: it must be established that available information genuinely called the usefulness of continuing into question.
A practical check in Zurich
As part of SHR's « Accueil client » programme, a Zurich team in financial services, insurance, tech or an international group's European headquarters can test a rule: when new information invalidates the current route, make the choice between continuing and redirecting explicit. During a pilot period defined in advance, record the relevant cases, the new information, the decision and its rationale, without personal data. The indicator is the proportion of these cases whose rationale refers to future usefulness or an applicable requirement, rather than solely to effort already expended. A review of anonymised records can verify this criterion; it assesses decision discipline, not, on its own, an improvement in service. To go further: explore the Client Reception training in Zurich, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Client Reception in Zurich
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