Do businesses’ weak policies invite bullying?

Image by Baron Christopher Hanson

Writing at the SmartBlog on Leadership, Baron Christopher Hanson argues that “the perceived weaknesses of a business, combined with desperate customers and evadable transaction policies, may actually entice bully customers.”

Hanson makes an important distinction between “high-expectation” customers who, “[a]lthough challenging ... are usually honest, civil and pay well for exceptional value or treatment,” and bullying customers, who are “usually dishonest, uncivil, verbally abusive and do not pay well.”

According to Hanson, the latter’s tactics “border on scam artistry.”

Hanson’s essay is of great interest to me as a survivor of bullying. I agree with Hanson that businesses should enforce clear policies but am not sure that all instances of bullying by customers can be attributed to perceived weaknesses in the target. This comes rather closer to victim-blaming than I feel comfortable with.

From time to time while working at a northern California newspaper, I encountered people who were textbook models for how not to behave with the media: They demanded free papers and behaved as though their announcements were more important than other submissions. The problems in these cases were not evadable policies or perceived weaknesses in the company; instead these people expected themselves to be exempt from rules that everyone else had to follow.

Hanson’s premise is worth thinking about when examining company policies, with the caveat that strict enforcement won’t stop people being mean. But hopefully if a business doesn’t cave to their bullying, these mean people will go away.