Dealing with Aggressive Customers
Dealing with Aggressive Customers
Panorama recently did an insight into the world of Gambling within the UK, and apart from the excellent information around the subject of gambling addiction it did highlight the aggressive natures that can come with any addiction.
If you take the time to watch the documentary you will see some men playing on the machines in a betting shop and when they lose a substantial amount of money, they automatically react by attacking the machine.
So how does that involve the subject of workplace violence?
Firstly there are 3 subjects that can make anyone from young to old or even male to female to react with aggressive tendencies, and one of them is “finances”
Money as we all know is becoming very difficult to manage in these current times, but when someone or something takes money away from you without cause; it can ignite an aggressive reaction. In the cases shown in this documentary you see some clear examples of frustration that eventually leads to aggression and the final result of an action of violence on something.
However if the staff don’t know how to react correctly and safely this can then escalate very quickly to the machine being replaced with a member of staff, and then that it is when the company has more problems to contend with than a broken machine or window.
I would suggest you watch the documentary and observe the actions of the men that are clearly frustrated with losing their money, and remember if the documentary is correct that gambling is an escalating problem, and then also aggression will also escalate into more physical actions of violence. (Or am I wrong?)
Staff need to be trained on how to deal with aggressive natures when faced with these incidents, and sorry I can’t recall “Customer Care” showing you how to deal with a fully aggressive person who has just lost £600 in less than two hours on a machine that shows no emotion, and then how to safely control that situation.
If you have staff that need help with dealing with aggressive customers then talk to us at Quell.
BBC Link Below:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nm27r