On my last post about abusive callers, Dave asked: Is much of the abuse you receive related to the panic of the patient or the people who care about him/her? Or is it generally just abusive drunkenness? I think this is a good question, good enough to warrant a post of its own in a reply. Here, in my opinion, are the reasons why people are rude/abusive and the types of rudeness that result.
1) Personality of the caller. You can’t really do anything about this one except try not to make the situation worse. Some people are just plain rude. Sometimes it’s a psychiatric problem, sometimes they just aren’t very nice. For some reason, rude people are forever calling 999, possibly because they have an exaggerated sense of entitlement, or because they like taking charge of situations.
2) Panic. Yes, panic is definitely a factor. Panicking people tend to lose all track of time (so they think the ambulance is taking ages, and get angry) and have difficulty listening to what you are saying (causing frustration, because they don’t understand what you are going on about) and it all comes out in a big rush of “Just f***ing help me or I’ll sue you!” Often by the end of the call they’ve calmed down and apologise or say thank you. Occasionally they even get the crews to ring control with an apology for the call taker.
3) Alcohol. Definitely encourages rudeness, especially coupled with factor 1. Also encourages blathering and unhelpfulness. Drunken callers are definitely not my favourites.
4) Not knowing the system. Callers get frustrated because they have to answer lots of questions and because we don’t know where “the big road near Tesco’s in West London” is. They expect it to be like it is on TV. They think that if they are asked to do something to help the patient, we are trying to fob them off. They think that we should be telling them something more concrete at the end of the call (eg. “we’ve dispatched an ambulance from Homerton and it will be with you in three minutes” rather than “if his condition worsens, call back immediately for further instructions”).
5) Attitude of the call taker. As Big Al remarked on the last post, some call takers seem to get more than their fair share of grief because of the way they react to rude callers. Getting cross is obviously a big no no, but I think we’ve all had moments when we’re exhausted and some horrible is shouting the odds at you that you snap and answer back in a manner not depicted in any customer care manual. There are other ways in which we accidentally antagonise callers too. You constantly have to weigh up how the caller wants you to be and change your manner accordingly. Sometimes they feel we are too blaze and it comforts them if we pretend to be shocked at whatever they are reporting — but go too far and they will lose confidence in your ability to cope. Interrupt too little, and the callers will waffle on, too much and they will get annoyed. Speak too fast and they will not understand you, too slowly and they will feel you have no sense of urgency. It’s a constant balancing act, and given that we are not exactly getting callers when they are at their best, it’s very easy to overbalance.
So now imagine a call where the caller is drunk, panicking, doesn’t know the system, not a very nice person at the best of times, and doesn’t think you’re taking his situation very seriously. Yes, all five factors equals Call Taker gets an Earful. It’s very rare to get a call from someone who is nice, calm and sober, knows the system and who you respond correctly to and manage not to upset, thus almost every call leads to varying degrees of Earful.
Fortunately, we all have thick skins.
