Complaints from customers are valuable in helping companies improve their services, but excessive, vicious demands and behavior cannot be tolerated. As organizations, companies should strengthen measures to protect their employees.
A serious social problem has arisen in the form of vicious complaints, such as customers exhibiting intimidating behavior toward store employees and repeatedly make unreasonable demands. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry plans to compile a manual for companies to deal with such excessive, vicious complaints next fiscal year.
According to a 2017 survey of about 50,000 people conducted by a federation of labor unions of the distribution and other industries, 70% of respondents said that they had experienced harassment from customers. Concrete examples have been reported, including cases of abusive language, physical violence, prolonged and persistent reprimands, forcing them to kneel down on the ground and slandering them on social media.
Such malicious complaints are called customer harassment. As it is difficult to draw a line between legitimate complaints from customers and customer harassment, sufficient measures have not actually been taken to deal with such vicious behavior.
It is significant that the government will draw up a manual to encourage companies to take measures against customer harassment. In the manual, the government should present clear criteria for how to judge what kind of behavior is problematic. It is also indispensable to analyze the causes and circumstances behind such malicious complaints.
In the coronavirus disaster, there have been cases in which some store clerks were shouted at angrily by customers who said that it was hard to hear the clerks through their masks, while others squirted disinfectant from a spray can on delivery workers who visited their houses to deliver products.
It is unreasonable to take out one's anxiety and stress about the spread of the coronavirus on store clerks. It is vital to bear in mind the importance of facing those who provide services by respecting their position.
A man who threatened to stab to death an employee at a 100 yen shop, saying there was a defect in a product, was found guilty of delivering a threat. It must be recognized that an act of unreasonably driving another person into a corner can be criminally punished in some cases.
It must not be overlooked that malicious complaints deeply hurt the feelings of employees who respond to them.
In the 10 years until fiscal 2019, 100 people have suffered mental disorders due mainly to complaints from customers and business partners, and their disorders were recognized as work-related illnesses. Among them, 35 have committed suicide. This is a serious situation.
It is a company's responsibility to protect the health and safety of its employees. It is important to set up an in-house consultation counter and unify the response to the problem, without leaving it solely in the hands of staffers in charge on the front line. It is also effective to make audio and video recordings of conversations with customers, and serve customers with several employees present.
Poor responses by companies to complaints has also caused customers irritation. Companies should deal with complaints with sincerity. It goes without saying that it is necessary to listen sincerely to legitimate complaints from customers and respond to them promptly.
-- The original Japanese article appeared in The Yomiuri Shimbun on Oct. 30, 2020.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
