A call centre boss is fed up with the amount of abuse his staff receive and called on Kiwis to show more humanity and respect.
Grant Walker, the owner of call centre company 2bconnected, believes the past few years have seen Kiwis become "shorter" and more willing to share their emotions whether they're good or bad.
It comes after a report by Customer Contact Network New Zealand (CCNNZ), a group that represents contact centre professionals, found abuse of customer centre staff is on the rise and has reached unprecedented levels.
The group is calling on Kiwis to stay patient and hold their temper even when they're on hold or warn callers could be left talking to machines.
Consumer NZ has investigated the longest wait times and found people were on hold for an average of 15 seconds with HelloFresh but, at the other end of the scale, callers to immigration NZ were facing wait times of two and a half hours.
Appearing on AM on Friday morning, Walker said there has been a dramatic increase in abuse and aggression towards staff in the past 12-18 months.
He told co-host Ryan Bridge even though they don't have any data on it, he believes it's clear there has been an increase in aggressive calls due to the number being escalated to a team leader to handle.
"It's usually somebody really frustrated. They start getting angry and unloading their feelings and their experience on the agent and acting in a way that you just wouldn't act in any other environment," Walker said, explaining how an aggressive call unfolds.
"You wouldn't go into a retail store and unload on a staff member like you do and yell and scream and, in some cases, make threats towards staff, which is just uncalled for."
Walker believes crises over the past few years including the COVID-19 pandemic, cost of living crunch and Cyclone Gabrielle have led to Kiwis being "shorter" with their emotions.
"Wait times, we know they're frustrating but companies do everything they possibly can to reduce them and companies get it wrong sometimes, and that's going to happen. But it's not the person on the end of the phone's fault.
"They're actually there trying to do their job to try and help the person."
Bridge asked if COVID-19 and the lockdowns have seen Kiwis lose "a bit of our humanity in the process", which Walker agreed with.
Walker urges Kiwis to respect call centre staff and remember their human beings as well.
"I think that's probably a perfectly valid point and it's been stressful for a lot of people, just like it's been really stressful for a lot of call-centre staff," he told AM.
"They're people too, they've got families, often they might be people that you know, so I think you just need to be a bit more considerate towards call-centre staff and what they put up with on a day-to-day basis."
Watch the full interview with Grant Walker in the video above.
