Workers Asked To Speak Up In First National Survey On Customer Aggression

ShopCare has launched New Zealand’s first cross-sector survey into customer violence and aggressive behaviour (VAB), to understand how it is affecting workers across the country.

Despite growing concern of customer violence and aggression, Aotearoa does not currently have a clear national dataset capturing how often it occurs or its impact on customer-facing workers.

Existing data is limited to individual sectors and does not reflect the wider workforce across all customer-facing roles.

To address this, ShopCare has commissioned the first national survey on customer violence and aggressive behaviour, delivered in collaboration with KPMG, and backed by cross-sector stakeholders.

ShopCare is aiming to hear from thousands of workers to build a clear national picture of the scale of customer aggression across sectors, and its impact on people at work.

Findings from the survey will be publicly available in late 2026. It marks the first phase of a broader campaign to encourage respectful behaviour towards customer-facing workers and support safer workplaces.

Selena Armstrong, CEO of ShopCare, says the survey is a critical step in closing a long-standing gap in understanding.

“Right now, we don’t have a clear national view of what our customer-facing workers in Aotearoa are experiencing. We want to hear directly from them - what’s happening, how it’s affecting them personally, and what needs to change.”

Denva Wren, Head of Safety, Health and Wellbeing at Woolworths New Zealand, says the survey will provide valuable information at scale.

“Everyone has the right to come to work and feel safe, and go home safely to their whānau and to be safe when they shop in store. Unfortunately acts of violence and aggression at work pose a serious safety risk to our team, customers and communities, despite our existing security measures.

We know this can take a heavy toll on mental and physical health and this survey will help us understand the reality of what the whole sector is experiencing so we can work on a joint response. Encouraging respect for customer-facing roles is a shared responsibility.”

Customer violence and aggressive behaviour is affecting both worker safety and business performance. It increases safety risks for workers and contributes to stress and staff turnover, while also impacting productivity, absenteeism and the ability for businesses to operate effectively. Understanding the scale of this issue is critical to improving outcomes for workers and supporting more stable, productive businesses.

The survey is now open until 31st May, and ShopCare is encouraging all organisations with customer or public-facing staff to share it with their teams. Responses are anonymous and confidential, and will contribute to a national picture of this issue.

All customer-facing staff are invited to take part and share their experience here: https://tinyurl.com/KPMGstaffsurvey

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