Topic key points
- Customer aggression refers to any hostile or confrontational behaviour exhibited by customers towards employees. This can manifest in various forms, including verbal abuse, threats, or even physical aggression.
- Customer aggression can arise from various factors, such as dissatisfaction with products or services, personal frustration, or external stressors.
- It poses significant challenges not only to employee well-being but also to the overall success of an organisation.
- As a coach, you are in a valuable position to help support clients understand, prevent, respond to and recover from customer aggression.
Introduction to Topic
There are many things coaches can do to help clients deal with customer aggression. Below are some possible avenues for intervention/sessions.
Understanding Customer Aggression:
- Recognising the different forms of customer aggression is crucial for effective management.
- Addressing customer aggression proactively contributes to a healthier workplace environment and improved customer relations.
- Support clients to understand the contexts and factors that increase risk of customer aggression and try and eliminate/control for those factors
Understanding the Impact on Employees and the Organisation:
- Explore the repercussions of customer aggression on employee well-being, job satisfaction, and overall organisational performance.
- Highlight the potential financial and reputational implications of mishandling customer aggression.
Explore Key Strategies for Dealing with Customer Aggression:
- Equip leaders and employees with practical techniques to de-escalate tense situations.
- Emphasise the importance of empathy, active listening, and maintaining composure when faced with aggressive customer behaviour.
Discuss Ways to Build Resilience in Employees:
- Provide tools and approaches to help employees cope with the emotional toll of customer aggression.
Training and Skill Development:
- Propose training programs to enhance employees’ communication and conflict resolution skills.
- Highlight the benefits of ongoing professional development in dealing with customer aggression effectively.
Developing Policies and Procedures for Customer Aggression
- Help clients establish clear protocols and support systems for employees facing customer aggression.
- Foster a culture that encourages reporting incidents and seeking assistance without fear of reprisal.
- Regularly assess and update policies and procedures based on evolving challenges and feedback from employees.
Process Considerations
- Common barriers for dealing with customer aggression include lack of training in handling aggressive customers, fear of negative repercussions for addressing aggressive behaviour and limited organisational support or clear policies for managing customer aggression. If you feel like some of these barriers are present, it can be helpful to discuss, explore and troubleshoot them with clients.
Included resources
- SafeWork NSW: Preventing and responding to workplace violence guide
- SafeWork NSW: Violence in the workplace guide
- MindTools: Practical strategies to utilise when responding to aggressive/emotional customers
- NSW Government: De-escalation strategies, training and resources
- NSW Government: Understanding the impact of workplace violence and ways to respond
- SafeWork Australia: preventing workplace violence and aggression – guidance for small businesses
- SafeWork Australia: workplace violence and aggression – advice for workers
- De-escalating aggressive behaviour training:
- HR Central: tips for dealing with an aggressive customer
- WorkSafe Victoria: Aggression and violence prevention policy example/template
- How to deal with difficult customers at a call centre
- Safe Work NSW: Physical safety at work the basics – violence:
Copy for Clients
As we explored in session, customer aggression and workplace violence can have a significant toll on employee and leadership mental health. Although it is a challenging issue to deal with, there are things that we can do to help prevent, respond to and recover from customer aggression. Please find below some resources that you might find useful. Reach out if you have any questions. We can discuss the resources and next steps in our next coaching call.