Unfortunately, this is something more and more of us are having to deal with in order to protect our employees.

Many employers tell staff not to confront abusive customers. But what happens when an employee does respond?

An employment tribunal awarded an employee £21,031 after ruling that Snows Motor Group, a south of England car dealership operating Toyota franchises, had unfairly and wrongfully dismissed.

The employee had been dismissed after sending two strongly worded emails to a customer who had repeatedly subjected him and his team to abuse during a dispute over a vehicle warranty.

The tribunal accepted the emails were below the dealership’s professional standards but found there was a substantial mitigating explanation of nearly two weeks sustained abuse.

By failing to investigate that context the employer decision to dismiss fell outside the range of reasonable responses.

The abusive customer was already known to staff for difficult behaviour. He had been asked to use another dealership. A dispute arose over whether repairs to the customer’s vehicle should be covered under warranty.

Over the next 12 days the customer repeatedly became aggressive, abusive and intimidating towards dealership team. Call records showed around 29 calls in a 2-week period and 15 in one day.

The employee had intervened because he witnessed his team members being harassed and abused and acted as a buffer between the customer and his team while trying to resolve the dispute. After a confrontational phone call the employee instructed the customer to communicate by email.

When the employee copied in his line manager to an email response to the customer the line manager objected to the tone of the email and a disciplinary process was followed and the employee was summarily dismissed for poor handling of a customer complaint and unprofessional conduct.

The tribunal accepted that the employee emails fell below professional standards expected by Snows Motor Group. However, it found that the employer failed to investigate why they had been written.

Although phone calls had not been recorded the tribunal had evidence that the customer had repeatedly harassed dealership staff.

Internal emails describing the customer as a red flag customer and colleagues consistently described him as rude, intimidating and manipulative.

The employer didn’t interview the employees who experienced the customers abuse and they fell short of a reasonable response.

The employers were also criticised for letting unrelated consideration to influence the disciplinary process that included customer recommendation score and customer risk of legal action.

Neither justified the employees conduct as gross misconduct.
Although the tribunal found the employee guilty of misconduct due to the wording of his emails it ruled, he had not fundamentally breached his contract and therefore should not have been dismissed.

The message was very clear in that customer service standards should not be rigidly applied where employees are responding to exceptional circumstances: A policy requiring employees to be polite to customers should not be rigorously enforced against the employees in this type of exceptional situation.

It is a reminder that employers must consider the whole context when dealing with misconduct.

Recognition that employees are entitled to protection from sustained abuse and that employers have a duty of care to do so.

Where does the duty of care sit? There is widespread abuse of customer-facing staff.

A 2025 Usdaw Freedom from Fear survey of nearly 9,000 retail employees found 78% had experienced verbal abuse, 54 % had faced threats and 11% had been assaulted, raising the question of what employers owe staff facing that kind of treatment.

In October 2026 there is a new duty to prevent harassment by third parties will be introduced under the Employment Rights Act.

This reminds employers of their responsibility to protect staff more broadly from bullying behaviour, whether it comes from colleagues, customers, clients or third parties.