Tackling customer aggression: No One Deserves a Serve campaign

A Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) survey of retail, fast food and warehousing workers found 85% experienced customer abuse and violence. The National Retail Association (NRA), which represents businesses, heard similar concerns from employers.  

The SDA sought support from the NRA to conduct an industry forum on customer abuse and violence to raise awareness of the widespread and pervasive nature of the issue and to get support from industry to do something to prevent it. This was one of three industry forums bringing together the union, employers and other stakeholders.

The SDA also delivered the customer focused campaign, No One Deserves a Serve, to aid behaviour change. The campaign ran across TV, radio and shopping centre billboards. 

The Respect and Resilience Program – developed in partnership between the SDA and Insurance and Care NSW (icare) – included training, environmental measures (e.g. signs and badges to humanise workers). The program was based on a literature review of best practice for managing customer aggression and violence.  

The SDA and NRA, along with the Australian Retailers Association, also worked on developing content on customer aggression and violence for certificate level courses for retail, fast food and warehousing workers.  

The Respect and Resilience program reduced customer abuse incidents by 47%, although customer aggression and abuse escalated during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“Be open and engaging with others – whoever you can engage in those early steps to lend you some credibility to what you’re trying to achieve.”

Katie Biddlestone, SDA National Industrial Officer and National Women’s Officer.  

The SDA and NRA have this advice for others: 

• Use data to understand problems and identify solutions. Use personal stories to show the human impacts.  
• Encourage collaboration between a broad range of groups (e.g. unions, employer groups, industry associations). It’s unlikely one group can solve problems on their own. 
• Foster trust by sharing information and resources.