Personal Safety: People keep standing to close to me when I am dealing with them (Aggressively)
In customer service jobs we come across this problem quite often, and the result can be due to someone that is either frustrated with the organisation or the person in front of them.
Some training over the years that I have seen has been giving tips on how to judge the distance, for instance imagine a person between you, or can you smell their breath and even weirder ones that I would rather leave to someone else to describe.
How we teach the best distance to have is by demonstrating key skills to easily remember when confronted by someone who is possibly aggressive of frustrated.
A good guide is when you are talking to the person and looking them in the eyes, can you see either of their feet in your provisual vision and if not then you are to close. Seems simple but practice with someone and when you can see their feet ask them to touch your nose with the tip of their finger and you will see they are just slightly out of range of contact.
The above skill mixed in with stance and terminology helps everyone that attends our training to control the situation safely and not alert the aggressor or frustrated customer that you are concerned.
For more information on our personal safety training please contact a member of the Quell team and they will be more than happy to help you.
Blog by Will Holland