What do you do when a customer threatens to beat you up?

Yes, beat you up. Delivering excellent customer service is the hallmark of a true customer service professional and can bring a sweet feeling of sensation, fulfillment and success when delivered, but what do you do when an irate customer becomes violent and threatens to beat you up.

I was at work one day when I heard what sounded like an argument from one of the cubicles. When the noise got louder I decided to take a look and see if I could be of any help. An angry customer was raving in rage and it seemed he was never going to calm down despite the efforts of the colleague concerned who was trying without success to calm him down.

I stepped in, full of confidence to handle the situation. I felt I had handled such customer challenges in the past and this was not going to be any different. I decided to apply the “let him vent off strategy” feeling he would eventually calm down once he got the load off his chest, but that never happened. So I decided to switch my mode of empathy a notch up but the guy only got worse. We tried explaining plainly and clearly that he would have to exercise some patience to get the issue properly resolved but the guy turned violent. It would seem the staff had initially said something to the customer to make him so unreasonable but we never got to find that out. I say this because the anger seemed to be directed at her and he seemed oblivious or less concerned about my presence or explanations. Or maybe he was just angry before coming in, whatever the reason, he was already threatening to beat up the lady.

When the customer turned violent, I did the only rational thing I could think of at the time, I called the police. It’s funny but the presence of the police seemed to calm him down. He apologized and offered to wait as long as it would take to resolve the issue.

I did a reflection of all that happened and some vital questions came to mind:

·         Is it right to call in the police on a customer who has turned violent knowing fully well that such  

customer could be lost forever by such action?

·         Should an organization ever be comfortable losing any customer?

·         At what point should an organization allow a customer to go, if any?

·         Is any customer worth loosing?

You be the judge.