Managing difficult conversations & behaviours can feel like a regular challenge in charity retail.
Facing an unhappy customer, addressing poor performance with a team member or even calming down someone who is being rude and abusive on your shop floor can all feel overwhelming sometimes.
Customer abuse
The annual Retail Crime Survey is produced by the British Retail Consortium, encompassing all types of retail. The 2025 survey states:
“Violence and abuse rose over 50% in the past year and 340% since 2020, at which time there were around 455 incidents per day. We are now at over 2,000 incidents every single day, which is the highest rate ever recorded in our crime survey.”
Sadly, charity retail is no exception – we know that teams across the country are being faced with challenging behaviour every day, so it’s essential they have the skills to navigate these situations to create a positive outcome for all.
Managing team behaviour
Of course, challenging behaviour doesn’t always come from outside of our organisations. Staff and volunteers can sometimes behave in ways that mean work is disrupted, people are upset or policies are ignored.
For those working on the shop floor and managing a large, mainly part time team, this can be a huge challenge: finding a quiet space to have a chat; having time to address issues when volunteer numbers are down whilst juggling multiple tasks; knowing what to say and how to say it – can all be tough.
Action is essential
Whether faced with a quarrel or complaint on the shop floor, or an issue with a team member’s behaviour, the best thing we can do is deal with it as soon as possible. Things that are left to fester only get worse – so we need to know the best ways to manage these situations well.
Fear holds many people back from doing this – but with the right tools and knowledge, it needn’t be a scary situation.
Things to consider
Our Managing Difficult Conversations & Behaviours click through course will help charity retailers feel confident in dealing with this tricky part of the role.
It covers a whole range of scenarios and considerations for de-escalating situations and communicating well. Some of these are:
- Plan – prepare well for any difficult conversation you may have to have, if you can.
- Practice – it’s a great idea to run through what you want to say, to get used to how that feels and sounds when said aloud
- Place – where is the conversation going to take place? Can it be in a private space, where you won’t be interrupted? If it has to be on the shop floor, what’s the best way to do that?
- Body language – how you say something can have more impact than the actual words you use. Think about eye contact, having an open stance and the tone of voice you use.
- Check understanding – it’s good to check at the end of a conversation that everyone involved has the same understanding of what’s been said and agreed.
To hear more about these techniques, and other areas to consider, check out our brand new click through course. As always, we’ve designed it with charity retail at its heart, so you can be sure it will be accessible and relevant to everyone in your team
For more information on Charity Retail Learning subscriptions and courses, click here
