• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Hosting Thoughts & Reflections

Hosting Thoughts & Reflections

Sharing thoughts & experiences

Unhappy With Our Service? Don’t Abuse My Staff!

10th May 2016 by Michele Leave a Comment

UFFFF

I previously spoke about transparency and dealing with customer complaints and issues when there are service issues. I noted that it can be tough and it’s far from easy at times. However one thing that I didn’t get into was “abuse”, as it wasn’t really that pertinent to the topic I was talking about.

Unfortunately it is an issue, albeit one that only stems from a minuscule percentage of our clients.

It’s pretty simple. If you have an issue with a service, be it ours or some other provider’s, you’re entitled to contact the provider and lodge a complaint. You’re entitled to express how unhappy with a service you are. You should let providers know when their services aren’t working as advertised. I’d never dispute that.

However what you should not, and I’d argue, cannot do is get abusive with customer service staff. Apart from anything else if you’re being abusive to them they’re less likely to want to help you. Why would they want to help you if you’re being rude, aggressive and downright abusive with them?

Personally my view on this is very simple. I pay my staff to do their jobs. Most of the roles are customer facing to a greater or lesser degree and all staff need to provide our customers with a good, if not excellent level of service. That’s their job, that’s what they’re paid to do and if they don’t want to do that then they probably should look elsewhere for employment.

BUT they are NOT paid to take abuse from customers. They are not paid to be the subject of racial slurs, sexist comments, threats of physical violence or abusive and foul language. Sure, clients may get upset and irate, but there’s a fairly big difference between that and some of the ridiculous attacks some of our staff have been subject to over the years. Internally I’ve always maintained that staff could terminate communications if a customer got abusive ie. warn them verbally to stop using the kind of language etc., with us and if they continue politely terminate the call. We’ve also had some “interesting” issues with clients refusing to speak to our non-Irish staff, or conversely making racial slurs against the entire Irish nation!

None of this is new, but like so many little things, these are issues that I’ve wanted to address over time.

So we’ve now made a minor, yet important, change to our terms of service by adding the following text:

Blacknight is committed to dealing with any customer complaints reasonably, impartially, and as quickly as possible. In this regard any queries or complaints can be put directly to our specified team at: customerservice(@)blacknight.com
Please note that Blacknight has a duty to ensure the safety and welfare of our staff. To this end we will not tolerate unacceptable behaviour by customers which is targeted to our staff. Unacceptable behaviour would include, but is not limited to the following actions:
Aggressive or abusive language,
Threats,
Foul Language,
Refusal to co-operate
Unreasonable refusal to co-operate
We would request that Customers desist in using abusive behaviour. If we are of the opinion that a Customer is using unacceptable behaviour to our staff, then the following actions can be taken by Blacknight:
Immediate restriction of communication with the Customer
Immediate termination of the Agreement between the parties
Report being made to An Garda Síochána.
Legal Action.

We may not be a huge company, but I’d like to think that we do our best to provide our staff with a comfortable and pleasant working environment and recognising the kind of treatment that some of them can be subject to is important. Hopefully we won’t have to use that clause in our terms of service often, but I know it will, unfortunately, get used.

Note: An Garda Síochána is the Irish police.

Filed Under: business, communication Tagged With: abusive, clients, customer service, language, racism, threats

Michele Neylon is the founder and managing director of Ireland’s largest registrar and hosting provider Blacknight.
Michele is an active and often outspoken member of the Internet industry both in his native Ireland and internationally.
He is actively involved in Internet policy development, and has served as a member of ICANN’s GNSO Council as a representative of domain registrars. He is also involved with policy development for several domain registries, including .IE, .EU and .US. He previously served as chair of i2Coalition and is a member of the Names and Numbers Steering committee of eco. Michele received the Irish Internet Association Net Visionary Award in 2013 and was named one of Ireland’s 30 Technology Disruptors at The Spiders Awards in 2019.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • A bit of Radio Advertising
  • Advertising Broadband in Print Media
  • How NOT to do Research With Companies
  • Our First Outdoor Ads Campaign
  • Humans Wanted

Recent Comments

  • Michele on A bit of Radio Advertising
  • Grandad on A bit of Radio Advertising
  • Michele on How NOT to do Research With Companies
  • John Berryhill on How NOT to do Research With Companies
  • Come Work With Us! on Humans Wanted

Blogs

  • Michele's Personal Blog

Other Sites

  • Avalon Holdings
  • Blacknight Blog
  • Blacknight Hosting & Domains
  • Blacknight Technical Blog

Recent Posts

  • A bit of Radio Advertising
  • Advertising Broadband in Print Media
  • How NOT to do Research With Companies
  • Our First Outdoor Ads Campaign
  • Humans Wanted

Recent Comments

  • Michele on A bit of Radio Advertising
  • Grandad on A bit of Radio Advertising
  • Michele on How NOT to do Research With Companies
  • John Berryhill on How NOT to do Research With Companies
  • Come Work With Us! on Humans Wanted

Blogs

  • Michele's Personal Blog

Other Sites

  • Avalon Holdings
  • Blacknight Blog
  • Blacknight Hosting & Domains
  • Blacknight Technical Blog

Archives

  • August 2023
  • April 2022
  • December 2021
  • February 2021
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • March 2020
  • December 2019
  • October 2019
  • January 2019
  • August 2018
  • May 2018
  • March 2018
  • November 2017
  • August 2017
  • April 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • February 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015

Tags

abuse advertising bloggers blogging blogs branding broadband business ces christmas communication communications conferences cpanel customer service david snead dns abuse domains dotblog email employees events hiring hosting internet internet infrastructure coalition investment ireland irish language legal marketing money policy portland radio registrars registries reviews service small business SMEs staff video websites

Categories

  • blogging
  • business
  • communication
  • domains
  • events
  • General
  • hosting
  • legal
  • marketing
  • policy

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in