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.

our Call centre staff would be offered a listening ear via our mental health first aiders and our employee assistance programme. The manager would write to the customer outlining their unacceptable behaviour and letting them know what sanctions may be applied now and in event if future incidents. The call
handler would be allowed to pass on that customers future calls to another call handler. True im not in private sector, but it works well I think. Our staff feel cared for, which is extremely important.

I’ve been in many, many tense meetings. I remember one when this poor person said the software has made their working processes even worse etc….. It was my early days in this profession, and I remember that by the end of the call they told me for the first time they thought I could solve all of the issues they had.

there was another one this week (I wasn’t actually part of it) - but my manager was and watched the recording- she diffused it but nothing was solved.

I remember another one (in another job) when the client was super frustrated and almost felt like a court hearing because they had to replay recordings of previous calls.

As much as you could tell they were all angry and frustrated, they never called anyone useless (or even implied it) and the calls themselves were not aggressive, just tense.

If he didn't direct the actual swear words at you personally I think that makes rather a big difference.

*I think some bit were like:
”it’s shit, why can’t you get your act together”
”Your system is beyond useless, why is it so fucking difficult?”
the c is slightly more difficult to translate into context, but it would be similar to a “fuck” said in frustration. However the word still means the same: female genitalia.

Christ on a bike. So many people would get this multiple times a day, my colleagues and I would have experienced this multiple times a day, when I was working in a front facing role. Surely, you just ignore it. If we had of gone crying on the internet every time this happened we wouldn’t have had time to make ourselves breakfast, lunch and tea🤣. Just move on for goodness sake.

Goodness me, have you never heard of "fight, flight or freeze"?

It's perfectly understandable that the OP didn't know how to react when a client threw the c-bomb at her. It would be completely unexpected (and unacceptable) in my industry too.

Yes, your employer has a duty of care. In my world, every client relationship has an executive sponsor. One of our directors would talk with the most senior client and let them know this was absolutely not acceptable. Remedies would start with a medicated apology from the client in question to you but might be as serious as us refusing to deal with the individual in future.

Unfortunately in my job we do get quite a few abusive and/or aggressive calls, up to and including threats of violence e.g. "I'm going to wait outside your office & gut you with a knife, and do the same to everyone who works there" and "you won't ever know I'm the passenger in that car next to you until it's too late". We've had people visiting the offices and assaulting the security staff to steal their building pass & had to put the entire building on lockdown at least twice with nobody allowed to leave on their own.

Those cases were reported to the police, but other than that there isn't much we can do except suck it up & take a break after bad calls. We can't refuse to talk to these people as it's part of the government mandated duties (local authority) and they all change their numbers so frequently we couldn't block theirs to avoid them.

That said, I have put the phone down (after a warning) a few times when the language got too bad; had a complaint about me once when I did that!

I'm a bit of a tough old bird & could probably out swear most of them if I wanted (I wouldn't of course) so I can cope no problem, but I can completely understand when it's a high level client and not the kind of thing you're used to. I went into shock myself when I notoriously "blunt" senior manager in my organisation called me up at the end of one day & berated me very aggressively for something (that I didn't know was wrong) and despite my general toughness that did leave me in tears.

To those posters saying suck it up or similar you never know how you will react to something you really don't expect, especially when it's very aggressive, until you've been there.

I guess hopefully you can just mainly only speak to his team rather than him. But he needs to apologise for his outburst. That's never acceptable. Your boss needs to speak to him to instigate this if it hasn't already happened.

I’m a nhs lone worker. Recently got injured by a patient. I was with a colleague at the time of the incident. Police aand managers involved. I was traumatised, colleague wasn’t. Everyone is different. So you need to put accross to your manager what you need. That way you will get support and help. So for me, I took some time off as sick leave, had counselling, did some training courses through work, had a full debrief, and made sure I do my own full risk assessments. Other colleague needed none of this. Speak to your manager! They are not mind readers and usually will want the best outcome for you

He called you a cxxx ?

Complain, have it all in writing. Talk to acas, a union if you are in one. People have been fired for less than that!

@Sillyquestion123 At this point, I would have expected your line manager or whoever you report to in your C-Suite to have picked up the phone to this person and told them that this language and attitude is inappropriate and that they expect at the very least an apology to be sent to you. I would also expect them to offer a different point of contact.

I have worked at Director level for the last 30 years, and whilst on occasion the people I have worked with have got sweary through frustration, I have never been on the receiving end from another entity. I have, however, seen my Director bang the table when he discovered members of his team had been harangued at a mtg and say, "No one treats my staff like this," and then take action.

I would see that as a personal attack then really, your employer could do more by speaking to this client and in my view they should have a duty of care and act on it. Do you have a process in your workplace where you can terminate the call if the abuse continues? Maybe speak to acas informally to find out what your rights are and what the next steps (if any) you can take

Does she fuck sound very precious! She expects clients to have some minimal professional standards and not call her a cunt on a teams call.

There are much more professional ways for this client to have made his displeasure known. Your standards of professionalism must be very low.

Hi OP, I'm so sorry that you've had to deal with such an awful person, and it does sounds as if something needs to be done about the manner and tone he used with you. I'm not at all expert in HR and policy, so will leave other well informed posters to advise you on that.

However, I am a fluent spanish speaker and have lived in Spain for over 20 years in total, so I can offer some insight into his use of the word "coño" (I am assuming this is the c-word he used).

Culturally in Spain the use of this word is very common in street talk. I remember the first time I ever heard it used (actually used by a very nice old lady who lived near me) and I was shocked to hear her use it because I was hearing the literal meaning, which is, as you've said, referring to female genitalia. However I then learned to appreciate that it is used to express a variety of things ranging from disgust to suprise, and even in some cases, appreciation or pleasure.

Spanish use that word in the same way we might say damn, eg damn that's bad but we can also say damn that's good. It can also be used as we would use the words shit or hell. So I doubt he was actually calling you personally a 'c**t', but was using it to say something (a process or an overall procedure) was shit, or was fucked up. However I caveat that by acknowledging that only you heard the words he said and only you will know for sure if he was using it as a direct personal insult, or in the way I just outlined.

But I would say while it is often used, it is considered vulgar and is generally not acceptable to be used in a business or professional setting. So whichever way it was used, I do think attention needs to be drawn to his manner and conduct as it sounds deeply unprofessional.

So sorry you had to experience it.

Edited for typos and spelling

Op, I think a lot of the responses on this thread are from people working in call centres/ supermarkets etc where they deal with abuse from the general public

It sounds like you’re in a professional, white collar role - and I’d agree with you that it is not acceptable at all. I’ve worked in a ‘fiery’ industry for 20yrs and never had this happen to me personally.

If it did happen generally, either the client would be talked to - politely of course - or a very ‘robust’ person who didn’t care about being shouted at would be put on the account (they do exist!). You shouldn’t have to put up with this if it affects you

I have had similar conversations with customers in my job. When I told my manager he rang them up and told them in no uncertain terms that it was not acceptable to speak to any member of his team in that way.

Like your client, my customers often have good reason to be annoyed, frustrated or upset with our organisation but 99% of them are good enough to appreciate that it isn’t my fault and are polite. But there is the odd one who takes it out on us, or in once case I had this year when the booking team contacted one of my customers about a change in the appointment and he absolutely let rip with her so her boss contacted me and asked me to have a word with the customer, which I did. They were very apologetic and promised not to take it out on her again and we haven’t had any problems since.

This. There are a lot of doormat/get used to it/it's normal comments on the thread but this is how it should be handled. The employer does have a duty of care.

This happened to me OP and my company formally informed the customer that further behavior would result in termination of the contract and we didn't care how much he spent with us, staff are not there to be abused. We did have a policy on it though. I'm surprised that your company doesn't have one. Most companies that deal with external customers do.

Years ago I've been that colleague who was "assigned that work" and it's an absolutely appalling situation to be in, knowing you've been shoved into the firing line.

I worked in the public sector dealing with high profile public figures. There was three of us in the office and one day one of the figures completely lost it at my colleague; shouting so loudly you could see the spit flying, language, some racist remarks. It was terrifying.

The response from senior management was he should apologise, and they told him he wouldn't have to deal with my colleague again, and I was given the pleasure. I was 23. Looking back now I should have have toldSenior managers if they wanted someone else to deal with him they should do it themselves. It's not acceptable to just pass the problem onto another colleague.

Exactly! I understand it’s part of their “day to day” use of language, but it’s still unacceptable in a professional setting.

Me too. I was threatened with a gun when on my own at work one Saturday afternoon. I wanted my boss to call the police and he flatly refused.

I used to get sworn at on the regular but we had permission to swear right back so it was an even playing field!

I'd expect your manager to talk to you about what you'd like to happen next. I.e. Do you feel safe enough to continue to work with that person.

In my line of work we regularly experience people being quite threatening towards us and I have been scared at times at home visits. Usually I can just debrief afterwards, brush it off, and plan the next visit and approach and maybe take someone with me. But when I was pregnant I visited a home and was threatened with a knife and the threats were around taking my baby. I freaked out and when my manager spoke to me about it she just didn't contain me at all and whilse she sympathised her attitude was a bit like things like this happen and said next time maybe I could ask someone to go with me.

I went on sick leave and then went on maternity leave at 29 weeks because I didn't feel safe physically or emotionally.

My point is you need to decide your boundaries and expectations of managers and next steps. But if you are unwilling to risk exposing yourself to any experience of verbal abuse from members of the public, a public facing role is not for you!

You should be allowed to terminate a call if you are not being spoken to respectfully

Absolutely. However the employer's duty of care obligations might depend on whether the employee had been directly abused by being personally name called and it seems that the OP wasn't.

Wouldn’t aggressive and threatening tone count though?

I work in payroll - 'stay away from dark alleys' and 'I'll cut your f**ing throat' where my personal favourites