Many people have had to work a job where they had to deal with countless people. Whether it’s a grocery store cashier or a server at a restaurant, there’s no shortage of abuse that employees have to take while on the job.
“She didn’t hear my cry but I had a good cry after the phone conversation,” recalls Candace O’Brien, who worked as a customer service representative for TD Bank. “There was a lot of sass, a lot of colourful language.”
O’Brien’s entire job was to deal with customer complaints about their finances. All of which is done over the phone. She estimates that over 70 percent of the calls she took was dealing with angry customers.
“They weren’t just questions, it was mainly because something went wrong. If everything’s going well, people don’t generally call.”
O’Brien’s experiences are felt by many. Sometimes, on a daily basis. When you walk into a store, you are the customer and you are helped by an employee. It’s an interesting power dynamic at its core level.
Kinlin Business School professor Perry Broome explains that this dynamic can be damaging. “For some people, their main source of power can be from a consumer transaction. Some people may feel that in their regular lives, they don’t have control over situations.”
This power dynamic between customers and employees is what can often lead to abuse to those doing their job. This sentiment is felt by workers like Katherine Jiang, who has worked in retail, fast food and box office customer service.
“Some people come in with the notion of ‘I am the customer, I am above you. You are working a minimum wage job.’ We get that attitude when people walk in and it’s frustrating to deal with,” explains Jiang of her time working with customers.
Treating employees poorly is nothing new to our society though.
The Psychology of Abuse
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There is a theory known as “intergenerational transmission of violence”. Psychotherapist Dr. Nicole Cormier explains how power structures can cause people to lash out.
“People who are subjected to abuse by people with more power, they don’t have the ability to fight back against the person that’s abusing them usually because they’re in a weaker position.” She uses the example of a man having a bad day at work and then kicking his dog out of frustration. The dog did nothing to upset the man, but the anger was directed towards it.
Cormier says that this is what can lead to customers lashing out at employees. Customers won’t be angry at what the employee did. Rather, they are angry at something in their lives that happens to be taken out on employees.
The sad reality is that employees just take it. “I really don’t dwell on it at all,” says Amit Kumar, who works as a cashier for Real Canadian Superstore. “I just kind of give it back to them saying ‘sorry, I’m trying my best right now.’”
Other employees say that they have simply become desensitized to the abuse. It’s a strategy that Dr. Cormier isn’t 100 percent sold on.
“Desensitization could just be a matter of them letting it roll off their backs easier. But I have to what extent that would be successful. How much are they internalizing that abuse? How much are they just pushing it under so that they can keep doing their job?”
Whenever an employee goes to management about an unruly customer, they’re probably given some variation of the ever-popular mantra: “the customer is always right.”
Is the customer always right?
The short answer is: no. Through talking with numerous employees, the customer is seldom actually right. If this is the case, then why is it such a commonly-used saying? Business professor Perry Broome has a theory.
“What a lot of organizations will do is take a look at a typical customer and think of [how] in any one transaction, how much money you’re making… and try to project out over time… and use that for a context for how far they would go to honour that customer’s request, no matter how outrageous it might be.”
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In other words, it’s within a business’s best interest to keep a customer happy so that they can get repeat business out of them. It’s easier to tell the employees whom you pay to smile and be nice in the face of conflict than it is to tell a paying customer to calm down.
And the thing is, the employees are aware of this dynamic.
Nicole Soltes works as a server and recalls a story where a mother was upset about having to pay full price for a steak that she wanted for her child. She wanted to pay the kid’s menu price for an adult meal. Soltes’ manager ended up giving the woman the steak at the price she demanded. This, after a 25-minute dispute with multiple restaurant employees. Soltes understood why her manager broke.
“It’s more of you just want them to feel as though they’re right so they keep coming back. You don’t want to put them in a position where they don’t get their way because then why would they want to come back there?”
Make them feel as though they’re right.
It’s a customer service tactic that has worked since customer service was studied. What it has done, however, is given the customer a false sense of superiority over the business and its employees. Former TD customer service representative, Candace O’Brien, noticed this sense of superiority in her work.
“I feel like they think they own the business at times… I don’t know how many times I’ve heard ‘if you don’t do this, then I’m going to leave.’”
It’s a societal issue, but there might be a silver lining.
Empathetic Customers
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While it may be a societal issue, the commonality between all the employees discussed is that they themselves strive to be the best customers. Server Nicole Soltes knows what it’s like to deal with bad customers.
“When I’m out I’m trying to be as nice as possible and make it as possible for the server. I hate being that person.”
Multiple part-time job-haver Katherine Jiang echoes similar sentiments.
“[You can’t] take anything too personally because some people are just having a bad day…sometimes [when I’m out] I just don’t want to be talked to and I think back on some interactions and think ‘I could have been nicer.’”
At the end of the day, everyone is in charge of their own actions. Dr. Cormier explains that there isn’t one sole reason why people can be rude sometimes.
“I think it’s our own life experiences and our own capacity for empathy can shape whether or not we respond on reflex or on instinct.”
Regardless, many people have had to endure it. For some, it’s a rite of passage before they move on to something else. For others, it’s their entire livelihood. One thing’s for sure: dealing with customers can help you develop a thick skin. Grocery store cashier Amit Kumar did.
“You just have to understand that you’re not perfect. Don’t take what other people say to heart.”
