Employees in customer service industries often face hostility in their work environments. When interacting with the public, customers can be rude or demanding.

In recent years, the public has grown increasingly toxic and sometimes dangerous. If a customer yells or threatens an employee, that interaction on its own is jarring. But when these incidents accumulate over months and years, the mental health toll grows.

Our recent research found there are tactics individual employees can use to improve their own work experience.

The study — co-authored with research psychologist William P. Jimenez of the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences — focused on taxi drivers, who are often on the front lines of customer interactions, work long hours and perform a great deal of emotional labour.

Difficult customers take a toll

As people become exhausted with their jobs, burnout rates can skyrocket with no relief in sight.

Across studies of customer-facing employees, we have found that difficult customer interactions increase burnout, elicit rule-breaking behaviours and influence whether workers want to remain in their occupation.

Employees have little recourse to improve their situations. Those working in customer service industries are especially vulnerable because the workforce is disproportionately made up of young people, women, racialized workers and........

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