What’s my employers’ duty of care? Should I expect more?

You don’t need their agreement to report him to his own HR department though ( sorry for slow reply)

Is there anyone else, another account director that can take this on? I appreciate you’re in quite an uncomfortable position

Still doesn’t give them the right to abuse their supplier though, the account director should be in contact with them over it.

A £100k account is pretty small change (dinInread that right from earlier). Surely you can’t be thought of that badly in your organisation and your company does have a duty of care to protect against abuse wherever it comes from. Paying an invoice does not allow someone to treat a supplier this way.

Actually, I’ve made a very sensible suggestion on how their employer could address the situation.

Ive also then identified that the OP is feeling the emotional impact of the event. The other person getting told their behaviour isn’t acceptable doesn’t alter what the OP experienced. And given the OP is struggling, then suggesting somewhere that could get support with that seemed sensible.

Why such a low expectation for yourself ? Why not seek justice?

Just find it strange that response is to tell PP to get MH support rather than get justice. This isn’t an OP problem , it’s the abuser problem & he needs to be held accountable

They’re not mutually exclusive, or substitutable.

I had a similar situation at work few years ago. Our leadership made a complaint to the client's leadership and told them they didn't think it was acceptable to either shout or be rude to our people because everyone is an adult and if there are any issues, everyone can discuss them in a calm and rational manner and work on addressing them. They were pretty adamant that being disrespectful wasn't an option even if we were the service provider who was paid for the service.

I think OP needs justice, not support

Do you have an employee assistance program?

If you do, it might be worth getting in touch with them for some support.

This has clearly had a significant impact on you, and some help processing it might be useful to you.

When this happened to me (but admittedly it wasn't a client it was lawyer on the other side) the head of my department made a complaint to the head of his department.
I suspect it wasn't the first complaint and within a week he was no longer working there

It's disappointing people suggesting this is just something you have to deal with. It absolutely shouldn't be.

@Sillyquestion123 obviously this is unacceptable behaviour. You've stated the solution early on, which is to point out calmly at the time that this isn't acceptable so you need to end the call now and resume when the person in question is able to do so without swearing at you.
Assuming you have some seniority and responsibility by now, you have been very sheltered / fortunate if you've not encountered anything like this before.
Treat it as a learning experience that won't happen again because you will be better equipped to take control and shut it down should it reoccur.
It's not bullying or harassment as a one off. You've reported it and honestly to keep pursuing it further is basically dog at a bone.

I can't believe posters saying to put up with it!

Even years ago working in a supermarket when this happened, the person would get thrown out the shop and banned.

This client should be un-cliented!

Unfortunately sucking up this kind of awful is exactly what is expected in the public sector and the everyday experience of people in low wage jobsf

I would think carefully about what you want to happen here. There is little chance of your company flagging it to the client’s company, and even less chance of them doing anything about it even if they did.

You could ask to stop being the contact person for the account but that affects you and not him, and also leaves another colleague to deal with him. It’s rubbish but ultimately if this man’s own company isn’t going to tackle this, yours has no chance.

I would just send an email for the record to your manager outlining in brief what happened and how you intend to deal with it in future (call meeting to a close, remind him such language isn’t appropriate etc.), which also gives him/her a chance to suggest something else.

Pretty sure if he spoke to a doctors receptionist or railway ticket office staff that way the police would be called.. They have zero tolerance policy for abuse

Eh, are you living and working in the Sciliy Isles and not used to negative client responses? What do you expect your manager to do?

Happens in my area of work all the time. If it’s particularly aggressive and abusive the client would be told we are not working for them.

But you sound like you don’t live in the real world.