When Customer Tries to Pick a Fight

"In this section we're going to discuss some methods you can use in dealing with tough customers. I'm Pamela Unruh on behalf of Expert Village. Another type of abuse hopefully you will never encounter from a customer but it has been known to happen. It's rare but it's been know to happen is physical abuse now this is obviously a customer who is not rational this is not a customer that you are going to be able to calm down or talk very rationally with. So you definitely want to discontinue working with that customer at the time. I just relay a personal experience here again I work in a service oriented industry we put equipments service equipment in customers homes and then we follow up when they call in. We send a service technician out to work on that equipment. We got a call one day a gentlemen had this equipment perhaps a month in his house, he had never had a problem with it. One day he called he wanted us to come out somewhere in between taking that call and the service man getting to the home the customer became extremely agitated about the fact that his system wasn't working. When the service man got to the front door the customer literally charged at him, grabbed him by the neck started beating him up and hitting him. He got back to the office with scratches and bruises all which we documented very carefully and we'll talk about that again. But this obviously is a case where you are not going to stay and try to reason with that customer when it crosses, this is the difference between verbal attacks and physical attacks. Anything that puts you in the direct danger from a customer obviously you're going to discontinue contact with that customer. We're also going to talk about some of the things you need to do to follow up in the event if that does happen. But again physical abusive customers you do not deal with them you do not have to take that, always remove yourself from the line of direct danger."