We at Ticket Attendant pride ourselves on customer service.  To ensure that we provide the highest level of service, we strive to provide a safe and happy working environment for our employees.  We have a strict policy in line with industry standards regarding customer behavior and interactions.

 

This document is intended to provide guidelines and is not an exhaustive list of our policy.  We reserve the right to amend this document or at any time without notice, and to designate any interaction as abuse or harassment at our discretion.

Abuse and Harassment

We will not abide abuse or harassment towards any of our employees.  

 

Abuse takes many forms, and this document will not attempt to outline obvious forms of abuse or harassment like sexual harassment, racism, or physical assault. In the event that any such abuse is directed towards our employees, we will take swift action.  This document will address some of the more subtle forms of abuse.

Verbal Abuse

While we understand that everyone gets angry from time to time, it is important that anger doesn’t turn into abuse.  We will not abide verbal abuse towards any of our employees.  This includes abuse that is face to face, over the phone, or through emails or other chat programs.

What is considered verbal abuse?

We define verbal abuse as anything that makes an employee feel uncomfortable or unsafe.  This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Swearing

  • Targeted Attacks on Character, Ability, Competency, Work Ethic, etc

  • Name calling

  • Threats

  • Bribery

  • Responses that do not advance the goal of the support ticket or call

 

Examples of verbal abuse

This list is not exhaustive, and is meant only to clarify some of the items above.  

 

Targeted Attacks on Character, Ability, Competency, Work Ethic, etc.

  • “You’re stupid”

  • “Do you know how to do your job?”

  • “You sound like you have no idea what you’re doing.”

 

Threats

When it comes to threats, there is only one acceptable threat:  “I will raise this up to your manager.”  Anything outside of that is unacceptable.

  • “I will raise this up to your manager and get you fired.”

  • “I’ll make sure you never work at another company in Chicago again.”

  • “If you don’t do this for me now, I’ll <do something>”

 

 

Bribery

  • “I know this is against policy, but I’ll Venmo you $50 if you take care of it.”

  • “I’ll pay you an extra $100 if you take care of this tonight instead of tomorrow.”

  • “I’ll buy you a drink in Vegas if you take care of this tonight instead of tomorrow.”

  • “I’ll send pizza to your office if you take care of this tonight instead of tomorrow.”

 

Responses that do not advance the goal of the support ticket or call

When submitting a support ticket or calling our office, our goal is to resolve your issue.  To ensure that we are able to address your needs in a timely manner, it is important that you work with our employees rather than against them.  If a comment does not progress the issue, then it can be considered abusive, as it is antagonistic rather than helpful.

  • When asked for login credentials

    • “You already have my information”

    • “It’s the same as it’s always been”

  • When asked for information about tickets, like a listing id, seat information, or the website where the tickets can be located

    • “Look it up”

    • “It’s right there, can’t you see it?”

    • “It’s on the PO”

Consequences of Abuse 

First and foremost, if our employees feel uncomfortable or unsafe during an interaction with a customer, we encourage them to respectfully terminate the conversation where the offending behavior is occurring, and to raise the issue up to a senior team member and/or management.  Our employees are not expected to tolerate abuse and will remove themselves from the abusive situation if they deem it necessary.

 

If our team identifies an instance of abuse or harassment, we may take a variety of actions.  For extreme cases, we may choose to immediately terminate our relationship with the customer.  For other cases, we will take an escalating approach to protecting our employees.  In each case, the customer will be notified about their status and about the offending incident.

It’s important to note that if we have reached the point of issuing a warning or a notification of a repeat offense, that communication will not be a discussion - the decision has already been made and arguing will not be productive.

 

  • First Offense - Warning - For the first instance of significant abuse or after a pervasive pattern of issues have been identified by our team, a senior team member or management will reach out to the customer to issue a warning.  We will note this warning and monitor the customer for repeated offenses.

  • Second Offense - Restrictions on contact methods - If a customer has been warned about a behavior but continues to exhibit the behavior, we will take measures to protect our employees for the customer.  Depending on the behavior, we may instruct our employees to not answer phone calls or reply to support tickets from the customer unless the employee is a senior team member or management.

  • Third Offense - Further restrictions on contact methods - On a third offense, we may choose to refuse all communication via phone or email, depending on the problematic behavior.  We may also choose to assign a specific individual to handle the customer such that no communication from the customer will be allowed through other channels.  This stage may affect the customer’s business as they will not be able to contact us unless the designated individual is in the office - we will not be responsible for any impact on the customer’s business as they had two opportunities to correct the behavior before reaching this extreme stage.