Revealed: Men swear more than women at customer service agents

Men were more likely than women to swear at customer service agents, according to the research
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Eleanor Rose29 July 2017

Customer service staff are being sworn at online by angry punters - especially men, according to a new survey.

Messaging software firm Liveperson examined 38 million live chats with US-based consumers across more than 500 brands to analyse customer trends for swearing and politeness.

Men swore 16.5 per cent more often than women in their chats. They were also more likely to use "hard" swearwords such as "f***" and "s***".

Women were more likely meanwhile to use "softer" words to express their frustration, such as "goodness" and "shoot".

Rurik Bradbury, global head of communications and research at Liveperson, confirmed: "Men are more vulgar and tend to go macho when they feel threatened."

People were ruder to customer service reps when they were able to remain anonymous, with only 72 per cent showing polite behaviour - such as saying "please" and "thank you" - in unnamed chats compared with 76 per cent in named conversations.

Perhaps surprisingly, customers were least likely to swear at representatives from financial institutions and most likely to swear in chats with firms such as cable TV providers.

They also presented the lowest amount of polite behaviour in interactions with companies in the pharmaceutical industry.

"Financial companies and pharmaceutical companies are very large industries where customers may feel they have less leverage," said Mr Bradbury.

"It's more of an 'I'll be surprised if they can help me, and happy if they can' scenario."

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