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

[Sillyquestion123]

I work in a client facing role and yesterday one of clients verbally abused me. He even used swear words and it’s all recorded. I’m still shaken by the ordeal.

My manager reassured me it was not my fault, and she’d listen to the recording , but that was about it.

Im still in charge of that account until I hear otherwise.

ive never been in this situation before so I really know if should be expecting more or not.

Not that it justifies what he said, but why was he so angry?

Sorry you went through this OP. Hope you’re alright.

He’s actually justified (to an extent) to be so frustrated. Obviously there are wa more polite and diplomatic ways of doing it.

His team had a terrible onboarding (we’re onboarding two different teams he manages, one of them I already have a working relationship and no complaints) and then the other one I speak their language and they openly said (to me) that they struggle to follow meetings in English. So I offered to have a separate call with them in their language.

this guy though it was a stupidly idea and that I only slowed things down. I even proved to him that a) it only happened for like 2 weeks max, b) the latest delay (something took 20+ mins for that team to understand) had absolutely nothing to do with me.

i even told him, that I’m just supporting and technically my role hasn’t even “officially started” with them.

they have a lot of red tape and internal bureaucracy that has zero to do with us.

Coincidentally, his team confided in us that he’s a bit grumpy in general.

Senior management need to speak to the client about their conduct.

Everywhere you go now, especially retail and NHS, you see signs saying that abuse of staff will not be accepted. If a client spoke to me in such an abusive way, I'd personally expect the client manager/partner to speak to them to say it was unacceptable language to use. Doesn't matter if it's a £1k client or a £20m client, I'd still expect them to have a conversation about acceptable language.

It can be very upsetting being shouted at and sworn at. I find I'm more upset afterwards than in the moment. It's as if my brain is trying to process what's happening. Does your company have a policy about abuse/ verbal aggression? To be honest I would have said that I didn't expect to be spoken to in such a manner and if it continued I would end the call. Then if it had I would have ended the call.

That’s more or less what happened to me. Obviously as my main job is really renewals, I just tried to save the account.

I don’t believe we have a policy… We have an external coach (he’s more sales than anything else) but I might ask for his advice too.

I’m sorry but at your level you should of done more to control the meeting and pointed out it was unacceptable

there are ways of doing this without being confrontational

I worked in a similar role and had one high ranked customer do the same to me.

It was over the phone, so I just said "I'm not prepared to continue this call while you use abusive language" and hung up.

Reported it to my director. He asked me if I was ok to continue taking calls from that individual, which I was, as long as he calmed down. And that was it.

Stay calm, use a rehearsed statement and hang up if you find it unacceptable.

But report any physical threats. We had one very nasty customer who parked outside a director's house for a month. Not nice.

I had to deal with a similar complaint from one of my employees years ago. Client contact used awful language in emails, on calls etc. Horrendous attitude on him that went way beyond frustration and into abuse.

I called the guy's boss who admitted the chap could be hot headed, but said he would speak to him. The guy denied, minimised etc, so I got them both on a call and played them a recording of his greatest hits, and told them that we would not be dealing with that individual anymore.

He lost his job not long afterwards (I got the impression that this was the straw that broke the camel's back) and ended up in trouble with the police as he wouldn't stop turning up at the office shouting at staff!

Definitely! But I had never been berated at work )not by a client anyway) ever, so I think it was just my shock that didn’t let me think fast to say it was unacceptable and just end the call.

I’d expect your boss to speak to their boss about it tbh. And they should be pointing you to their employee assistance programme for support.

That sounds utterly horrible, OP. I suggest you talk to your employer again about what further action they might take. That kind of behaviour is unacceptable. If this guy’s business is struggling, it may be because he’s a nasty piece of work. It’s perfectly possible to express frustration without abusing someone.

Exactly! There are ways and means for everything.

This is the approach I would expect too. Your client needs to be told, clearly, that his treatment of you was unacceptable.

Even if it costs the company £100k in lost revenue.

That sort of behaviour has no place in business; actually let’s stop at ‘no place’.

From what you describe, you should expect more. The foul language especially. I expect if it is a company that is your client, they may wish someone else to represent them.

Agreed.

Sticks and stones OP, swear words are just words.

Well, I think it's a sorry state of affairs for anyone to be abused at work, and to see so many people here normalise it. Perhaps that's the problem, we don't hold people to account anymore.

That’s part of the problem. I don’t think we can anyone above him, sideways potentially but even then they wouldn’t have the same “scope” as him. So I think if we still want to do business with them, it would have to be someone else other than me.

im assuming he could even get fired for what he did (there’s a recording) but I doubt we’d go that far.

Unfortunately, you do get used to this sort of behaviour, and get better at dealing with it. I work in the public sector and its really common to be on the receiving end, it used to really upset me. But over the years ive become much better at dealing with it. Its like water off a ducks back now sadly.

That said, its not usual in your role. Id expect this client to be given to a colleague to deal with snd also for him to be made aware that this sort of behaviour is not tolerated.

Try to separate the behavior from what he was frustrated and angry about. I work in complaints and people regularly shout swear and are abusive, then the next day they often apologise. It's horrible the first time it happens to you - remember the things he said aren't true about you and don't let it get to you x

The expectations about how employers manage things like this have changed. HSE are now expecting stress risk assessment and evidence employers have considered things like employee assistance programs (Google EAP). I've linked below to HSE. Even if your industry is not normally targeted by HSE your LA would enforce in the same way.

I'd start by explaining to your employers how you feel and suggest what support might help you (eg at least being taken off this account) and take it from there. They might not realise you need more support, if they are dicks about it you can consider your legal options

https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/

Btw I'm H&S not hr but my hr colleagues have said tribunals for things like this if not managed right will go through the roof

Sending hugs

Look, this was not face to face and you could have ended the zoom call as soon as the client swore at you. Given that you chose not to, it is not clear what you expect your employer to do after the event. In your position I would refuse to work with that client again.

Where I used to work we would sometimes have to deal with this kind of hostility. If you’ve never experienced it before I can understand it would come as a shock.
i went on a course called something like ‘Effective communication and dealing with difficult customers’. It was really useful. Maybe ask if your company can send you on a similar sort of course?

I manage a contact centre. If this happens, the associate would be able to terminate the call or ask one of the managers to take over the call.
We would review the call and often senior management (me) would get in touch with the client. There have been clients we’ve had to “ban” from calling because of their behaviour.