How to Train Staff to Deal with Angry Customers

QSR teams are no strangers to demanding customers, but the scale and intensity of frontline incivility have quietly escalated into a crisis. As many as 99 percent of retail workers say they’ve experienced or witnessed hostile customer interactions on a daily or weekly basis. Even more worrying, more than half report feeling unprepared to handle those situations effectively.

This is where a workplace experience problem becomes a staffing risk. 

Repeated exposure to customer hostility is a key driver of burnout, disengagement, and attrition. In the QSR sector, where turnover rates already exceed 100 percent, every additional source of pressure pushes valuable employees closer to the door.

The question is no longer whether you should prepare your teams for incivility; it’s how fast and how well you can do it.

A Harassment Problem in DisguiseCustomer incivility covers a broad spectrum, from passive-aggressive behavior and rudeness to outright aggression and harassment. While many…