Build knowledge about conflict management
Under the Cinflict ladder section you can read about the conflict ladder, which is a good tool to understand how conflicts develop and what to do to de-escalate the situation.
You can help to ensure that every employee is familiar with the conflict ladder and their options for action, for example by handing out materials or addressing the topic at a staff meeting.
Look at how work is organised
The risk of conflicts with customers can be linked to the way in which work is organised at the shop. For example, you can prevent queues at the check-out by opening more check-out points, or you can reduce waiting time during peak periods by increasing the number of shop assistants.
Similarly, you can make sure individual employees have more energy to manage customers by having them rotate between servicing customers and doing other work, and by ensuring everyone knows they can call for help from a manager or colleague in critical situations.
Use the health and safety risk assessment
You can get an idea of the situation at the shop by identifying how you organise work as part of your health and safety risk assessment (APV).
Moreover, you can use the APV to interview employees about their experiences with conflict: How often do they experience conflict with customers? Do they feel prepared and able to manage conflict? Do they need more knowledge, training or clearer procedures?
Put conflict on the agenda
The quick method:
If you want to address the subject of conflict with customers at a small workplace, a simple staff meeting may be a good place to start. You can exchange and discuss your experience with customer conflict at the meeting and share ideas about how to prevent conflict. At the end of the meeting, you can all assess whether there is a need to launch initiatives.
- Watch a short film together about customer conflict. Check out the Trapned.dk website (opens in new window) for more films.
- Talk about the film: What is it like at our workplace?
- What can we do to prevent and manage conflicts with customers?
For the chair of the meeting: Prepare for the meeting by reading more about conflict management on this page.
Initiatives based on a health and safety risk assessment
You can conduct a health and safety risk assessment (APV) with special focus on psychosocial working conditions and examine the factors that affect the occurrence of customer conflicts and that affect how such conflicts are experienced and managed.
There are several ways to conduct a health and safety risk assessment:
- The dialogue method by which you identify the problems at a staff meeting and discuss causes and solutions together.
- The questionnaire method by which you collect employees’ opinions and experiences in writing, and then find causes and solutions either in the health and safety group or at a staff meeting.
Tools and materials
- The Conflict Ladder. A booklet from BFA trade with knowledge about conflicts and how to reduce them. Read about the conflict ladder, tools for reducing conflicts and what to do when the conflict cannot be resolved.
Read more