Five reasons why workers should be able to stand up against rude customers
November 19, 2020
You go to school and spend hours each day studying and working on assignments. On top of that, you try to keep up with your social life and take care of your mental health. However, you also have dreams, and those dreams alone do not pay the bills. So, you decide to get either a part or full-time job.
After a long day of dealing with your own problems, you show up to work only to get yelled at by a customer for a mistake on their order. They belittle you and make you feel dumb. I first-hand have experienced this feeling, and it makes you feel angry and useless. In the back of your mind you either want to cry or flip them off, but you cannot, or your manager will fire you.
People who work in retail, fast food, at a reception desk or in any other type of customer service know the struggle of having to deal with rude customers every day. Companies have strict policies when it comes to handling difficult customers. However, those policies are made to protect the customers and the company’s image rather than its employees.
“Unfortunately, all too often, the person who has been attacked is disciplined right alongside the attacker…in which case the employer often dismisses the employee in an effort to mitigate possible liability,” mentions the HG Legal Resources website.
There are five reasons why customer service workers should be able to stand up against rude customers without fear of dismissal or repercussions.
Some customers go too far
It is one thing to get upset because your order is taking too long or because a cashier gave you a nasty attitude and report it to a manager. However, it is another thing to physically or verbally assault an employee when they are just doing their job or when they accidentally make a mistake.
There have been many cases of customers attacking employees and getting away with it because employees are not allowed to fight back.
According to the Today website, on June 27th, a 19-year-old female McDonald’s employee was physically attacked by a racist customer who refused to wear a mask in the drive thru. The man called her names and then proceeded to grab her neck, slap, and scratch her.
When police arrived, the manager at the location refused to provide the authorities with surveillance footage of the incident and the worker had to call for help on her own. As a worker, you should be able to rely on management to protect you from rude customers. This is only one of thousands of situations which escalate further than they need to.
Employers should implement a policy where the moment a customer curses at an employee or lays their hands on them, employees should be able to defend themselves. If they wish to fight back, they should be able to do so at their own risk. Additionally, people in management should be terminated for not defending and protecting their employees.
Customer service workers do not get paid enough
Working minimum wage is sometimes barely motivation to show up to work. Let alone enough to deal with a stubborn customer for a long time until a manager or supervisor can take over the situation. If employers expect regular employees to deal with customers in the same manner which managers and supervisors have been trained and get paid to do so, regular employee’s wages should also go up. Minimum wage means employers should expect minimum effort.
Employees have feelings
Unfortunately, many times customers get away with yelling at employees. While employees may act like they don’t care, they do have feelings and opinions about their experiences with customers. Just because customers are paying for a company’s service does not mean they are paying to be treated like royalty. If the employee is acting rude or inconsiderately to the customer, then the customer has every right to call a manager and make a complaint. However, the customer should never personally try handling an issue with the employee.
You never know what someone else is going through, which is why you should never treat someone else how you would not want to be treated. Just like customers are free to say whatever they want, employees should also be able to.
While companies need to keep the workplace professional, if employees are not feeling well emotionally, they should not be forced to interact with customers. There should be exceptions which allow employees to work on tasks that do not involve customer interaction without getting in trouble for it.
Companies need to understand that life has a toll on everyone and that neither employees or customers are robots. Leaving an employee that is going through something to interact with customers can harm an employee’s emotional and mental health.
Some people deserve a taste of their own medicine
It may feel easy to attack someone you know cannot defend themselves. Some customers feel entitled to five-star service from local businesses that see hundreds of customers each day. Because they get away with it, customers will only feel reinforced with the idea that they are above everyone else. However, employees should be able to treat customers how they treat them.
More than half of the time, customers make a bigger deal than is necessary and act as if they are better than everyone working in customer service when that is not true. I once had a customer call corporate on me because I didn’t look them in the eye when taking their order although they were making me feel uncomfortable. I did not get in trouble for it, but it showed me how ridiculous some customers are when they do not get what they want. What comes around should go around.
While employees are able to report harassment in the workplace to their supervisors, a lot of times, employees have to deal with customer harassment which some managers see as customer friendliness.
Employers should be a lot stricter when it comes to situations like these, allowing employees to refuse service to customers the moment they feel uncomfortable.
The customer is not always right
Many times, customers feel the need to always be right. If employees tell them they cannot do something or that the customer did not order something specifically how they wanted it, the customer will always argue that they are right.
Many businesses live by a customer “the customer is always right” policy in an attempt to make it seem like they care about their customers. However, customers should know that they are in fact, not always right. Because of that, employees should not feel forced into pleasing a customer that is treating them wrongfully, especially when they did their job right.
Companies need to realize that one less customer is not going to harm the company. It actually might be better to implement policies that ban rude customers leaving regular customers with more pleasant experiences. Companies loose more money by trying to please rude customers that cause big scenes and scare other customers off.
“Being rude and angry doesn’t get you anything. [Customers] won’t get anything out of it, and [customers] will just make themselves look bad,” said former cashier Marcos Martinez.
People who work in customer service deal with a lot more than their job title describes. There are a lot of rude customers out there who feel the need to belittle employees to make themselves feel special.
Work policies in all businesses should be modified in order to better protect employees. New policies should allow employees to defend themselves either verbally or physically in the situation that a customer treats them with the same energy.
Val Hampton • Aug 17, 2022 at 2:36 pm
I’ve worked a multitude of customer facing jobs- grocery stores, college cafes, too many restaurants and delis to count, hotel housekeeper, house cleaner for a company, call center, clothing stores, gas stations, a giant liquor store. I think out of all of them, the liquor was the worst because it was in a college town in Texas, where the liquor laws are super strict and the store policies were even stricter. I’ve been spit on, kicked, threatened to be killed and r*ped, someone said they would sue me, was told to commit suicide…all because they didn’t have their ID on them and I wouldn’t sell to them. Some guy went all psycho and started pulling out his hair and throwing it at me. Not only would I have gotten fired if it were a police sting operation, I would have been fined and jailed, and the store would close down adn the company lose their license to sell alcohol in the state of Texas- not could have, 100% would have. So sorry, I’m not risking all that because your dumbass doesn’t know how a liquor store works, despite having a big sign at the front door, signs all over the store, me wearing a giant butter that says “MUST HAVE ID READY, WE CARD EVERYONE”. And in many cases, managers don’t really have your back at all. they’ll throw you under the mess as fast as you know they’d replace you if you get sick for too long.
Christine • Jul 26, 2022 at 2:09 pm
I worked as a Barista, and I do encounter rude/mean customers. It was hard to deal with them even the manager/supervisor do not help he/she/they employees. I do believe employees do defend themselves or else more bad situations will come. Thank you for this article, Adamary
Jessica • Oct 16, 2021 at 7:30 am
I work at a grocery store In the self checkouts and I get bullied and harassed all the time. Just for doing my job and being as pleasant as I can. It would take forever if I’ve mentioned everything I’ve been though., so I’ll share the most recent one. Yesterday I saw a customer looking frustrated and I didn’t hear him right away I have a hearing disability so I mentioned it to him as well as politely pointing out I wear hearing aids and asked him kindly to repeat and he told me that ” people with hearing disabilities shouldn’t be working” and kept telling me off so I got my front end manager and she did stick up for me. But yes most people who I encounter thinks they are better than everyone else so they treat others that way.
Best • Apr 21, 2021 at 4:50 pm
I’ve worked quite a bit in customer service and- you got it! I just ended my call center shift with a very agitating call. If you’re calling me with only 5 mins left before my day is done, and I’m trying to help you but you just want to argue and bitch at me because it isn’t how you think it should be, fuck you, figure it out yourself. I work for a company at the moment that promises “white glove service” aka we are expected to kiss the assess and hand feed really stupid helpless people. The person was refusing to hear anything I was trying to explain. I tried to stay calm and easily might have even whipped out some of the old empathy and deescalation crap they force feed us in training. “I understand this is very frustrating, I’d feel the same way! I can only tell you what information I have available to me but want to help figure this out, and need some additional information from you so that I can assist.”
I really didn’t get that far because all he wanted to do was argue and holler at me because our systems don’t work the way he thinks that should. Explained and provided him his 3 options currently, but that wasn’t enough. We’re basically forced to keep these couthless beasts on the line and be their door mats to endure their abuse and helplessness with a gleaming smile like we really give a crap.
To quote a memorable scene from the comedy “Airplane” between former Mrs. Cleaver from the show Leave it to Beaver and a couple ornery jive-talking passengers on the plane ” Sucker don’t want no help sucker don’t get no help.”
I didn’t argue, I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t even hang up on him! It was now after the end of my shift. There was literally nothing I could do to assist without his cooperation so despite guidance to deescalate and take on an the legwork and perhaps warm transfer, I cold transferred him directly to the source from being on hold, to let them explain and clocked out.
I have no regrets. I’m getting paid to help people but you can’t fix stupid and unfortunately I can’t help someone who won’t let me help them.
Arttia • Mar 3, 2021 at 11:14 pm
I wish company would protect the employees better from rude customer/shoplifter.
I been working at this “retail home improvement store” for a couple month now as my first job and I really love working and talking with anyone that walks in. Everyone is nice while on my shift. Maybe have a couple frustrated customers here and there, but yesterday was the most Problematic shift I ever been on. Two customers (women’s that claims to be sisters) was checking out at the self-checkout area with two cart full of random items. Seeing them checking out the items back and forward between the two carts and dropping multiple item. I went over to see if I could help them, but the older one said “ Can you not hover over me, you’re making me nervous.” And told me that she don’t like my attitude towards her. ( which was a weird thing to say when I’m only offered to help, but ok it’s fine.) I apologize to them and told them if they need help that I’m right here and step back to the center of the area to watch them. I continue to watch them since it was a bit odd in the items that they were scanning. My retail store is home improvement warehouse and usually when customers come and buy items from the store. Customers always buy products from one or two departments at a time ( like plumbing or kitchen appliances). So it was a bit off when a customer cart was full of house rugs and expensive hardware ( like drills and saws) togethers. ( and many other products that have nothing to do with each other.) Since the improvement store is not really where a customer usually casually roam and look around on each Aisle. ( Every customer that comes in sort of have a plan or a project in mind when they come here. ) As the two women keep scan the items the older women walk over to me and hand me her store credit card and ask if I could check how much was on the card. So I check the card and give it back to her and went to help another customer on another self-check out machine, while still watch the two women. When the two women was done scanning their items. The older one was trying to slide the store credit as a credit card. I came over to help them and saying that “ our store credit is a scan type and could not slide.” As I was done type the PIN number for the card. I told the the Older women the total balance left of the total and was about to throw away the empty store credit card when I noticed that the younger women was missing with all of the item within the cart. Which was a bit shocking since all the items as a whole was total was around $1500 . (And the store credit only pay $300 of it so far) lucky the older women was still standing by me. So I turn to her and said her told her total amount left. She took out her wallet and lightly went through her cards and told me that she left her Credit card in her car and that she was going to get it. I quickly told her that she can’t leave because the total remaining amount is over $1000 and she could just call her sister to get her card for her since she was already outside. The older sister told me no that it’s in her car and stared to walk. I quickly try to block her away without touching her I told her that she Hass to stay in the store. I even asked if she could call her sister on her phone to get the card, but the women was very adamant that her phone was dead. So I even offered my phone to call her sister to go get her card and she said no. At this point it click into my head that she was trying to shoplift at this point. my dumb self even offered her that I would go to the entrance of the store and yell out to the parking lot for sister. She keep saying no and begin to walk out. ( I give her so many other options into getting her card, but she keep on Walking off)I continue to walk next to her arguing with her that she have to stay in the store not noticing that I was already in the parking lot. ( insert face palm emoji) luckily for me her younger sister was standing in the middle of the parking lot pick up an item that fell off of the cart ( the cart is super full since she combine two full carts together of stuff). At that point, I Believe that older sister was so Fed up with me. That she her sister to take a picture of my name and my face and want to talk to my Manager how rude I was. When in reality I was just doing my job. Then she told the younger sister to give the cart back to me and not to help me with the items. I told her “ that’s fine, I just need you guys to get back into the building and I will go get my manager for you.” So I push the cart back into the store the head cashier came to help me while another co-worker call the manager for me. Then it just hit me that I just broke one of our store policy by technically confronting/ following the customer out into the parking lot. When my manager came she told me to go hide in the back of the store so my face don’t irritate two women. After waiting for about 20-30 minutes. My manager came to find me and asked my side of the story and if I hit them or lay my hand on them. Which I didn’t I just block the older women from exiting the building with my body, but never touching them. The two women “customer” got their $300 store credit back and all the items that they was trying to leave with got put into the Record for shoplifting. While writing my witness statement for the manager. So I never really got to hear what did my manager to talk to them about, but one of my co-worker said to me that he saw the two women walking back into the store after me hit their arms while telling my manager that I hit them with the cart. This really confusing me a lot since our store cart are only hip high so there was no way that the cart could give them a bruise on their arm at all. The nerve of some people. So hopefully, I won’t get fired over this! I really love helping people out and all my co-work are like family to me now. I know I should have call for help the moment that that women start to walk out, but my moral conscience won’t let her walk off without paying. ( insert sighing emoji)