As a barrier of communications, when you communicate with customers, which effecting more; judgmental thinking or environmental factors?

environmental factors are in my opinion the biggest barrier to communicating with customers, judgement calls are a necessity in most cases but the environment is not always in your favour or control.

They to have the customer in your preferred environment, if you can set up the interaction so you are best placed to assist the cusotmer then the outcome will be far better and more in your control of the outcome. 

Though there are various communication barriers other than the two you have mentioned, I think judgmental thinking affects the communication more. This is because, it creates differences in opinion and due to different perceptions and thoughts, communication often gets hampered.  

well definitely the environmental  factors or the "context" in which the communication is taking place will have more effect than judgemental thinking to answer your question, however, I think inward thinking and the attitude of the customer service representative has more effect than both of them combined.