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How to deal with aggressive customers for a safe workplace
Want to prevent an unsafe work environment, unhappy employees, and legal issues? Utilize these tips to nip the growing aggression from customers towards employees in the bud.
The aggressive customer
The aggressive customer. A growing problem for today's delivery drivers, pharmacists, waitstaff, and retail workers. As a teenager, I also had to deal with it in the hospitality industry. Without any action plan or training, no thick skin, and no backbone. It was like swimming without arm floats. It seemed to come with the territory.
Now I know better: it doesn't come with the territory, and we can prevent this. At the very least, the aggression can be intercepted and de-escalated. And we now have the modern means to reach and prepare our service staff.
How can HR & L&D professionals train and empower their employees to deal with aggressive customers:
1. Develop an unacceptable customer conduct policy
Action: Create a clear policy defining unacceptable customer behavior.
How: Form a working group to draft the policy.
Tip: Include people from operations who have (a lot of) experience with this type of situations.
Strategies for
Conflict resolution, Culture development and Support
3. Offer skills training for de-escalation
Action: Organize training sessions for employees on de-escalation techniques.
How: Use role-playing and simulations during training. Ensure the training is interactive and relevant to the work environment.
Tip: We see organizations having many successes with role-play simulation in VR.
4. Cultivate an open workplace culture
Action: Implement mechanisms for employees to report abuse and create a supportive culture.
How: Use anonymous reporting channels, organize team meetings to promote open communication, and emphasise the importance of mutual respect.
Tip: Read here how BLOS childcare created a safe and open culture.
5. Immediate support and post-incident care
Action: Ensure leaders are immediately available to handle escalations and offer post-incident care to affected staff.
How: Create a communication protocol for leaders to respond quickly to incidents, and provide information about available support services.
Tip: It's important to regularly evaluate this protocol and adapt it to the specific needs of your organization. Additionally, collecting feedback from employees can be useful to measure the effectiveness of the implementation.