When Customers Attack: The Psychology Behind the Upset Customer

“Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry….”

What turns an otherwise mild-mannered customer into an ireful individual pushed past the limits of their patience? Says Guy Winch, a licensed psychologist and author of The Squeaky Wheel: Complaining the Right Way to Get Results, Improve Your Relationships and Enhance Self-Esteem, it all comes down to respect, or the feeling of a lack thereof – for the customer’s time, dignity or intelligence. This mirrors ClickFox’s latest Customer Tipping Points Benchmarking survey, which lists the issues customers find most frustrating.

Top 5 Customer Service Tipping Points

1. Having to speak with multiple agents and starting over every time; 42% of all respondents say this is their most frustrating tipping point.

2. Being kept on hold for long periods of time.

3. Rude or inexperienced representatives or service technicians.

4. Not getting a resolution on the first try.

5. Not being understood by IVR/speech recognition applications.

How Customers React to Bad Experiences

The impact of a poor customer experience to both customer retention and new customer acquisition is substantial. Eighty-two percent (82%) of consumers surveyed who had reached a tipping point after a bad customer service experience were established customers. Sixty-eight percent (68%) said they would react by telling family and friends about the experience or posting it on social media. Thirty-five percent (35%) said they would stop doing business with the company altogether.

According to a related survey, more than 60% of all consumers are influenced or very influenced by other consumers’ comments about companies. So not only does the company upset or lose a current customer; it most likely loses a potential one, as well.

When Customers Attack…

Notes Winch in a Psychology Today blog, a customer’s frustration is often directed at the service representative, whether or not he or she directly contributed to the frustrating experience.


Many customer service representatives take it on the chin when a customer experience goes bad, sometimes even if all they’ve done is picked up the phone and asked, “How can I help you today?” Winch notes that consumers who are incredibly upset with a service experience tend to dehumanize the service agent they’re interacting with and become someone they’re usually not. When customers verbally attack a customer service representative, the psychology of it says:

1. Angry customers view CSRs as the literal representatives of the company, and therefore hold the CSR they’re interacting with personally responsible for their problems and frustrations.
2. Because the customers do not see the CSR’s face or reactions, psychological filters such as civility and empathy are switched off.
3. Drawing from previous experiences associated with complaining, customers are convinced the CSR will make it as difficult as possible to resolve the problem, and so consumers are already in “battle mode” before they dial the support number or begin their email.

How Can We Keep Customers from Reaching Their Tipping Points?

Looking back at the list of top five tipping points, first contact resolution and a respect for an individual’s time are two keys to avoiding customer frustration. If the customer is already frustrated? Some tried and true tips come from internationally-known author, public speaker and communications skills expert, Rich Gallagher. Click here to read: What to Say to a Porcupine – Defusing Angry Customers.