There was this viral video going online where there was an altercation with customers at a store called Cinnabon which appears to sell pastry and the employee was taped on camera openly telling the customers that she is racist and goes off of them with vulgar language. While you can debate about the current facts as to what led up to this situation, what was interesting is the mixed reactions in terms of what the business should have done. Not surprisingly, they announced that the Crystal Wisely was apparently fired as expected. But a lot of the public feel that is wrong as they felt it was the customer that harassed her and the company should have defended their employee.
I think it really depends and unfortunately the employee left the business no choice. Businesses often teach their employees not to react in these ways to the customers regardless of how irate they may be pretty much for these exact reasons. Standing by them then pretty much does mean you condone everything they did by your actions. Versus tenanting them just makes it simpler as standard procedure per se. If the employee tried their best to act professional and the customers continued to harass her then the business would be in a fantastic position to defend their employee.
That has happened before in various examples where let’s just say it’s the other way around where the customer was clearly the one making threats and insult to the employee. The company can pretty much handle it by calling the authorities for example or making statements that they support their workers from that type of abuse. I think its understandable from a business point of view as most companies can’t keep a person like that without making the situation even worst. Like saying, you may hate the customer but you shouldn’t just go ahead and punch them over words and then expect the company to back you after that.