Aggressive Customers - How to Keep Your Customer Service Team Motivated

In this article CX thought leader Frans Reichardt presents the findings from a survey on customer contact employees, revealing significant concerns over customer aggression and its link to employee burnout. It discusses the implications of aggression and offers strategies to boost employee engagement and mitigate negative impacts.

The results are quite scary. Last year, Yves Van Vaerenbergh, a professor at Belgium's largest university KU Leuven, presented the results of an employee experience survey among 985 customer contact employees. The Belgian Customer Contact Association supported the survey. As I said, the results are quite scary.

The good news is that contact centers are attractive to employees. Before we get to the scary part, let's start with the good news. One of the positive observations of this research is that contact centers are considered as quite attractive to employees. Many respondents have an over 20-year-long career in customer contact at the same employer. On average, employee engagement is fine.

The bad news: verbal aggression from customers. The research shows that employee feelings of burnout are above average. About 13% of employees are at risk of burnout. Job stressors like conflicting demands, number of tasks, time pressure, and verbal aggression of customers are quite high.

Are customers getting more aggressive?

Van Vaerenbergh's study is not the first that shows verbal aggression of customers toward employees, in general, is an increasing concern. Research indicates that customer aggression continues to be widely reported internationally. Last year The Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services reported some worrying figures in 'Measuring customer aggression: scale development and validation'. It says 'A recent survey of 1160 retail and fast-food workers found 56% had experienced an increase in customer abuse (Vromen et al., 2021). An Australian retail workers’ union surveyed 1000 members, finding 80% had experienced customer abuse in the previous 12 months (Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association, 2020). A United States survey of nearly 5000 frontline service workers found 3069 were abused, 1326 were threatened and 196 were physically assaulted – more than double the rate of incidents compared to 2019 (Lillis, 2020). Similarly, a recent British survey found 65% of respondents have seen threats toward service staff increase, leading to 1.26 million reported incidents of verbal abuse (Wiggins, 2021).' Customer aggression is a global problem, and it seems to be on the rise.

Four elements of customer aggression

The Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services differentiates four elements of customer aggression: reactive versus proactive, and inexpressive versus expressive aggression. Take a look at this 'Customer Aggression Matrix':

• Reactive-expressive aggression (REA) | A visible emotional reaction triggered by a situational event that results in direct and intentional physical (or verbal) aggression aimed toward an individual. Example: Pushing, shoving, throwing objects, yelling aggressively at a retail employee in response to a negative situation (i.e., product unavailability, refund refusal, perceived overcrowding).
• Proactive-expressive aggression (PEA) | A visible, goal-oriented emotional demonstration that results in direct and intentional aggression aimed toward an individual, designed to encourage compliance or goal attainment. Example: Intentionally demeaning, yelling or swearing aggressively to attain a cash refund, upgrades or benefits.
• Reactive-inexpressive aggression (RIA) | A subtle, implied emotional reaction triggered by a negative situational event that results in direct non-verbal, non-physical, covert hostility aimed toward an individual. Example: Staring in an aggressive manner at a retail employee, entering their personal space, using one's height or build to intimidate, ignoring reasonable directions or requests.
• Proactive-inexpressive aggression (PIA) | A subtle, implied goal-oriented emotional demonstration that results in indirect, non-verbal, non-physical, and covert hostility designed to encourage compliance or goal attainment. Example: Intentionally falsifying complaints, writing fake reviews or spreading rumors about a retail employee's performance to attain benefits or positive outcomes.

The impact on customer service employees

When customers become verbally aggressive, employees tend to suffer from emotional exhaustion and job stress. In 'Verbal Abuse: The Hidden Harm of Customer Service' the author mentions the impact of customer aggression on customer service representatives:

• Lingering Effects | Verbal abuse can often stick with customer service representatives long after the call ends. Even small, seemingly insignificant incidents can cause microtrauma that build up over time.
• Burnout | Verbal abuse can contribute to customer service representatives' feeling overworked and unfulfilled. This can lead to high turnover rates and a decrease in employee productivity and motivation.
• Increased Stress Levels | Verbal abuse can contribute to overall work-related stress. This can lead to physical symptoms such as migraines, nausea, and fatigue.

The impact on your business

It goes without saying that when emotional exhaustion and job stress harm your customer service employees this will also harm your business. What are the business impacts of aggressive customers?

• Emotional Exhaustion and Job Stress: Dealing with aggressive customers can lead to emotional exhaustion, job stress, and burnout among your employees.
• Negative Employee Experience: Emotional exhaustion, job stress, and burnout increase customer service employees' organizational deviant behavior and increase their intention to leave your organization.
• Decreased Quality of Service: Verbal aggression towards customer service employees can damage the overall quality of service that they provide to your customers.
• Negative Customer Experience: Both aggressive customers and emotionally exhausted employees are more likely to tell others about their bad experiences with your brand, leave negative reviews, and harm your reputation.

How to keep your customer service employees motivated

What to do next? Firstly, you should address the topic of customer aggression as a reality in your customer service employees' world. Secondly, you should engage them in finding ways to maintain a healthy work environment and ensure their well-being and safety. Provide support mechanisms to reduce the effects of verbal aggression.

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It would be ideal if we could simply decrease the verbal aggression from customers towards our customer service employees. That seems to be the hardest part, although Yves Van Vaerenbergh recommends communicating with the general public to publicly condemn any form of aggression toward customer contact employees.

He recommends contact centers that are eager to increase employee engagement, to:

• Show your customer service team how meaningful their work is.
• Invest in your customer service employees' competences.
• Give your customer service employees autonomy and authority to resolve service issues effectively.
• Show them the impact of their efforts on customer experience and other.

By empowering them and treating them with respect, by establishing a supportive culture, and providing training, you will create a healthy and productive work environment for your customer service team.

Finally, I give you some ideas from my experience in daily business life which might benefit you in keeping your customer service team motivated:

1. Provide them with access to relevant data.
2. Offer state-of-the-art tools, dashboards, etc.
3. Facilitate first-time fix (e.g. AI-powered, ChatGPT).
4. Give them a mandate, autonomy.
5. Celebrate customer successes.
6. Share the Compliment of the Week.
7. Exchange experience.

Are you up for creating a customer experience culture that not only delights your customers but also champions your agents' mental well-being? In this episode of CX-WISE, our host Nathan Bennett engages in an insightful conversation with renowned CX Expert, Annette Franz. From addressing mental health concerns in contact centers to dispelling common misconceptions about customer experience, Annette's expertise will inspire you to navigate the complexities of the modern CX world, one step at a time. Annette also shares her practical advice for leaders on fostering a human-centric culture for CX success, revealing the crucial CX metrics that truly signal progress. Tune in to gain a fresh perspective on CX, filled with real-world anecdotes and actionable tips. Learn how you can embrace customer-centricity for CX success in your business.