The Loud Customer Impact of Quiet Quitting

Though at first glance this sounds like Gen Z-ers just stop showing up at their jobs without notifying the company, this phrase refers to disengagement at the office, not disappearance.

The recent phenomenon was made popular by employees who, after two years of the pandemic, are burnt out from their current positions but not looking to join the Great Resignation. Instead, they continue working their 9 to 5s, meeting but not exceeding expectations. They log on at 9, take an hour for lunch, and log off at 5. They are unavailable to meet after work hours and will not go above and beyond for their company.

Where did Quiet Quitting come from?

1. A Societal Shift

Boomers will likely remember, early in their careers, feeling as if they worked harder than the boss that made five times as much as them. For a long time, this was the accepted standard. If you were not the last one in the office, you were not doing enough. Today, however, expectations are different. Whether Rich Dad, Poor Dad or economic TikTok videos are to blame, workers are less interested in impressing their presumably overpaid boss and more excited by having multiple streams of income. Whether they work for 9 hours or 11 at their day job, they will get paid the same salary. If they put in extra time with their side gig of influencing, investing, or consulting, the more money they will get out of it. Guess which one workers are more likely to care about?

2. The “Work from Home” effect

To get into the office in the morning I take the bus through the Lincoln Tunnel. Today, there was a car stopped in the tunnel. The driver had gotten out, was standing in front of the car, and looked absolutely dumbfounded by his situation. As the bus passed by, he looked through the window and made eye contact with me. It looked like he was going to cry.

Working from home gave workers a new sense of self-worth and empowerment. They no longer had to spend hours commuting or stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel with no hope or help in the world. They didn’t have to pay for gas, could have lunch with their loved ones, and when they logged off at five could immediately be doing the things that mattered the most to them. Before the “Work from Home” mandate, it wasn’t hard to encourage workers to stay later than 5—the longer they stayed, the better traffic would likely be. Now, the longer they stay, the less time they get to spend with their friends and family. Incentives have changed and companies need to get creative to motivate employees.

Quiet Quitting has spurred controversy and outcries on both sides of the debate. On the one hand, Kathryn Dill with the Wall Street Journal comments, “If you do have a worker who's doing what you've asked, who's meeting expectations, who is successful by the metrics that you've set out, then why would you, the manager, be torn up about it?” As long as the workers are meeting expectations and not just coasting along, getting paid without putting in any effort, why would the employer be concerned?

Kevin O’Leary, Shark Tank investor and well-known entrepreneur, has a different take: “People that go beyond to try to solve problems for the organization, their teams, their managers, their bosses, those are the ones that succeed in life.” He goes on to advise that hungry workers should “forget about balance, you’re going to work 25 hours a day, seven days a week, forever.” That’s quite a bit more than the 9 to 5 Quiet Quitters were hoping for.

Both sides of the debate have a point. On the one hand, if workers are meeting baseline standards, there is no reason to fire them. To O’Leary’s point, though, there’s no reason to promote them either. Though the two sides of the argument seem contradictory, there is one thing tying them together: managing expectations.

If O’Leary starts new workers and tells them their hours are 8 to 6 and they have five projects to accomplish this week, but then expects them to work 5 to 9 and complete fifteen projects each week, he is not only going to be disappointed—he is setting his employees up for failure. By “Quiet Quitting” in this scenario, employees risk getting fired—not at all their goal. However, if during onboarding O’Leary makes clear that his baseline expectation is for workers to be in the office 80 to 110 hours a week and complete ten projects then, to meet his lowest bar, his workers would have to be in the office 80 hours a week (or, complete the ten projects, perhaps whichever one comes first). The Quiet Quitter in this scenario would still be getting their work done, even though not going above and beyond, and O’Leary would have no room for complaints.  

For many jobs, expectations are not so clear-cut. If a Sales Development Representative’s number one goal is to help the team drive sales, the work becomes less transactional and more like a team effort. If the SDR took Quiet Quitting as an invitation to stop being a team player, only jumping in when absolutely necessary, the employer would likely want to sit down and have a candid conversation with them. The conversation would be much more likely to revolve around the fact that the SDR is coasting, not that they don’t work overtime. On the contrary, if the SDR contributes to the goals of the company every day of the week in the hours dictated by their contract, all would be well. Even better, if the individual noticed a gap where they could be better, they might even be inspired to work a little longer in the name of the team—shirking their Quiet Quitting mentality for just that one day.

Working for 100-plus hours a week, even if it is what you agreed to, is difficult without a purpose. While employees binding together against one mission is helpful, it would also be important in this scenario for O’Leary (or the Sales boss) to be clear about the value employees will get by putting in the extra time. There are two ways to do this: one is with rewards (for every additional project you complete beyond the standard ten you get an extra dollar amount added to your bonus) and the other is with fear. Goldman Sachs is famous for letting go of the bottom 1% to 5% performing investment bankers at the bank. Don’t want to get fired at the end of the year? Work harder. 

Is Quiet Quitting for Everyone?

If Quiet Quitting, in its simplest form, is just meeting (and not exceeding) goals, then it hardly seems it should be so controversial. However, Kathryn Dill asks the question, “To whom is the strategy of quiet quitting available?” And herein lies the strife. There are some lines of work where this laid-back experience seems impossible. Sometimes expectations aren’t just unclear, they have blurred lines and a lack of distinction in who is setting the expectation: the employee or the customer.

When a package is delayed, when a service is malfunctioning, when help is needed to set up a new purchase, customers expect support—even if it doesn’t conveniently fall within the typical working hours.

Recently, I had an issue with my insurance, Blue Cross Blue Shield. I had some routine bloodwork done and was charged well over what I expected to pay, considering the insurance company was supposed to cover it. Admittedly, I could’ve called sooner, but experience told me I would be on hold for a long time and calling during a lunch break or a lull in the workday would not be the best idea. Since their hours are 8:30am to 8pm, I confidently dialed the phone at 7:15 pm. To my surprise, the beginning of the call went remarkably smoothly. After dialing in some personal information (Member ID, birthday, etc.) I was quickly connected to an agent in my area.

The man on the other end of the line listened to my story intently, seeming genuinely concerned about the problem. When I was done explaining, he sighed, “I’m sorry this happened to you,” I could hear him hesitating on the other end of the call, “would you mind being put on hold for a moment while I look into this for you?”

Convinced he needed to get a supervisor to help solve the issue, I had no problem with this. “Of course not, thanks so much” I replied, feeling very satisfied with my customer experience thus far. I had been transferred quickly, only had to explain my story in detail once, and felt I was on my way to getting an adequate solution. As the minutes passed, I trusted the process, not letting the annoying hold music dim my positive attitude.

Finally, at 7:59, the man came back on the phone, “Thank you for holding ma’am. It seems that—.”

The line went dead.

Technology fails, it’s okay. I had given the agent my phone number before going on hold in case something like this happened, so I waited by my phone, expecting a call back.

The call back never came. At about 8:10 I called the customer service line again to figure out what the issue was and received their infuriating automated response: “You have tried to reach us outside of working hours. Please call back Monday through Friday between the hours of…”

I hung up.

I wanted to believe it was just a coincidence that the phone went dead at precisely 8PM. I wanted to believe that he did not promptly call because he accidentally lost my number. I certainly did not want to consider the alternative: that the agent had left me on hold until just before 8pm, picking up again only when he knew he wouldn’t have time to solve my problem before his working hours were completed.

Granted, if this were to be the case (and I have no proof that it was, perhaps it was just a happy accident), the call center agent was technically still adhering to his contact center’s basic employee standards. He was being kind to customers, working within the hours he was asked to, and making an effort to solve problems. The moment the clock struck his usual sign-off time, though, he was done.

This was far from meeting my expectations. Sure, I called toward the end of his workday, but I didn’t think asking for an additional five minutes of his time was a preposterous request. I was hardly requiring the man to fly to my apartment, drive with me to the doctor’s office, and explain to them what went wrong and how he planned to fix it. I simply wanted a clear next step to resolve this issue.

At the very least, the agent could have come back onto the phone a moment earlier, explained that he would not be able to speak past 8, and that he would call me back the following morning. I wouldn’t have just accepted this but praised it as outstanding customer service.

These are my expectations, though. The customer’s. Technically, by meeting typical call-center baseline expectations, he didn’t do anything wrong. But when you’re dealing with customers and defining their customer experience, they don’t care about the bottom line or what appears in an individual agent’s employment contract. They care about how you treated them, how much time you spent with them, and if you were able to resolve their issue. They definitely do not care about how long your shift is supposed to be, how annoying your supervisor is, or the fact that you won’t get paid overtime for staying on the phone an extra ten minutes. They are selfish because, in that moment, they can be: they have a problem and they are relying on you, the call agent, to fix it.  

Bosses’ expectations, then, need to be in line with customer expectations. They must act as a mediator: protecting agents while keeping the user happy. Leveraging flex scheduling, gig work, and artificial intelligence can help with this by giving customers a longer window to ask for help without overextending workers.

Quiet Quitting may be a viable solution for some looking to get by at work without burning themselves out. However, when customers are involved, rules can be bent and bosses are expected to understand what their customers need from agents. With that information, companies can establish workflows, set policies, and cultivate cultures that empower agents to satisfy customers without feeling as if they are doing extra work for no compensation. If meeting baseline expectations sometimes means going beyond the call of duty, Quiet Quitting means that you will still be fairly compensated.

Photo by Cayley Nossiter on Unsplash