First Direct boss joins call for action on consumer abuse

First Direct, the bank that consistently tops customer satisfaction polls, has revealed even its contact centre staff are among the hundreds of thousands of front-line workers witnessing soaring levels of customer abuse, seemingly triggered by Covid, Brexit and supply shortages.

According to First Direct chief executive Chris Pitt, one member of the team was stalked online while others have faced a barrage of abusive complaints.

Pitt’s remarks come as new research from the Institute of Customer Service reveals that front-line workers in all industries, not just retail, are seeing more aggression.

Some three-fifths (60%) of customer service workers have experienced hostility in the past year, and nearly half of them said customers were becoming more aggressive.

The study has sparked an open letter condemning the rise in abuse, signed by 50 business leaders, including bosses at Nationwide, Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer and the Post Office.

Pitt told the BBC’s Today programme the vast majority of First Direct’s customers were “brilliant most of the time” but he said that some became “abusive, swearing, and quite personal” when they felt complaints had not been resolved.

He cited one example when a customer had looked up the contact centre worker on Facebook and called them to tell them they knew what they looked like and which office they were based at.

Pitt added: “We’ve also had a customer who failed security and had to do an extra verification. That customer then rang up over 150 times over the next couple of hours and was abusive to everyone they spoke to.”

Institute of Customer Service chief executive Jo Causon said: “Workers are saying that people are becoming more aggressive, and there is a huge concern that actually this is going to get worse as we build up to the pretty challenging Christmas period. It is across all industry sectors, in contact sectors, we’re seeing it in frontline staff.”

First Direct said its management would monitor more calls to ensure it tackled issues customers have but Pitt warned the bank would not hesitate to close the accounts of abusive customers.