Member Article

The Key To Handling Customer Behaviour

The key principle of health and safety law is that employers must not put staff in situations which pose a threat to their health and well-being. This idea is well understood and applied where firms recognize natural situations |like not exposing staff to faulty equipments or to the chance of slips and trips. However, this idea is not well practiced in companies where the health and well-being of employees are put at risk by exposing them to customers’ aggression.

Handling the influence of customer anger seems less clear than managing the dangers to employees from equipment failure. However the effect of being on the receiving end of emotion packed customer frustrations constantly can be stressful and exhausting.

Companies have a lawful duty to do all they can to help staff dealing with customer annoyance. In reality, this means playing an active part in managing the behaviour of customers. Firms should focus at managing customers’ behaviour at three stages.

1. Personal level: The staff member tries to deal with the conflict directly with the customer. Staff should be educated on how to identify and separate the problem under discussion from the customer’s behaviour, and how to manage that action efficiently. If a staff member cannot settle the situation, the client should be directed on to a supervisor or manager.
2. Supervisor/manager level: The supervisor or manager should attempt to calm the customer down by again trying to address the customer’s behaviour. There is usually an automatic down shift in a customer’s anger level when they see a ‘win’ by getting through to a supervisor. However, this does not always improve their practices when they call up at the ‘front line’ next time, mainly if they believe their annoyance has worked first time round.??
3. Company level: If the customer behaviour continues or is repeated routinely, then it’s time to involve senior managers. Decisions taken at this stage might include requesting that the customer only communicates with the organisation in writing, or speak with a manager only, or visits a specific location to access the service, or in extreme situations, the service might be pulled.

We often meet staffs who have to deal with the same known aggressive people calling daily or weekly. Calls from such customers can be very stressful to handle and may infuse dread in staff. Such situation should be managed strictly regardless of the customers’ circumstances. Discussion with staff on what can be done to manage customer aggression can be a very fruitful exercise.

Support for staff should include addressing what the Health and Safety Executive specified as the key standards to reduce stress. It includes providing staff with more control over their work, managing their demands better, and increasing their support through formal briefing, supervision and conflict management training. Better motivated, supported, and confident staff leads to improved customer service levels.

Our conflict management training programs are highly participative workshops in the truest sense. Participants have the chance to discover how they personally respond to conflict and practise skills during individual and group exercises. We provide many opportunities to implement new skills and receive feedback.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by OPM Ltd .