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New laws are being brought in to protect sales workers "from abusive customers"

I spent over 17 years in the retail trade, so I know where this is going.

A sales advisor is a front end, representative of the shop/store they work for.
If they do not know the acceptable position of a particular issue and are not willing to get someone in authority to assist, then, should the customer become irate, then it would be a criminal offence.
There are numerous problems with this approach.

As over the past few years, shops / stores/ banks, etc. have opted to take advantage of weak and long winded consumer groups, we are getting to to the point where something needs to give and it's not, simply making the customer or consumer a criminal.
The customer isn't always right, but very often, when the customer is right, they are left without any form of redress, out of pocket in money and time.

I can give you numerous examples of businesses flouting common law in England & Wales, quoting that their head office decides what is and isn't acceptable (Wrong! The law does this), rather than the customer's statutory rights, to avoid giving an exchange or a refund.

Sports direct: 
I've posted before about their selling of football socks, stated to be a size 10, but a change in design means they are completely unsuitable for a size 10 player to wear.
The branch refuses to address the issue with a simple refund or exchange, saying "It's up to our head office!"
Their head office says, "It's up to the store manager" and refuses to intervene to resolve the issue.
This is a breach of the customer's statutory rights and is a legal matter.
This simple scenario doesn't help the customer, they are given the proverbial runaround and get nowhere, ending up out of pocket.

O2:
Just witnessed an abysmal experience with O2.
Numerous advisors being unable to authenticate an account, despite the customer giving seven (yes that's 7) forms of ID to authenticate their account.
Advisors putting the customer on mute, then cutting the customer off, so the customer has had to start the whole process all over again, on numerous occasions.
Advisors promising a new sim card, then no receipt and no sim card, then customer has to go through the whole process again.
Advisors promising a "technical help team call back within 3 working days" - yes that's three days - to try to solve an intermittent fault with O2's service, you guessed it, the technical help team didn't phone back, so again the customer had to start the whole process all over again.
Advisors flat out lying to the customer regarding account details being "unavailable" when not two minutes earlier in the same call, they were discussing things on the account, which could only have been known had they access to the customer's account.
The long and short of it all, O2 wanted to change sim cards from the old 4g to the new 5g.
So the service for the old 4g sim cards became intermittent and resulted in lack of service for the customer.
Until such time as the customer became so frustrated with the lack of sensible service from O2 they were ready to cancel their contract.
Advisors also did not write up the enquiry notes accurately, which is a breach of the Data Protection Act, O2 have a legal responsibility to do.

Then and only then, did O2 sit up and take notice.
On the third attempt to send out a sim card, they finally did, only their "dedicated sim registration department" staff, were unable to activate the new sim card.
Leaving the customer to explain the whole process all over again for the umpteenth time, leaving the customer on the phone for hours at a time over a number of days.

No redress for lack of service, no customer satisfaction, no apologies. Appalling.
Head office do not make the law, governments and legal departments do.

So in this case, the customer quite rightly in my opinion, kicked off on the phone. They had just sat through over two hours of phone calls, getting absolutely nowhere.
The customer was refused a manager attending.
The customer was offered the chance to wait, "but it will be an hour" - that's OK, you don't return calls!
After ten minutes on mute, the advisor terminated the call without speaking to the customer again and didn't log any of this on the customer's account notes.
O2 advisors in this case have clearly broken the law.
So where's the redress? Where's the accountability? Where's the legal enforcement of the customer's rights?

Numerous businesses are claiming that refunds can only go back on the debit card that was used to make the purchase.
(Wrong again!)
A purchase made with a debit card, leaves the customer's bank balance immediately and a refund should be given as a cash refund if the customer requests it.
Ladbroke's won't even pay out any cash winnings on a bet, if it's paid for via debit card!

Utilita:
Guest payments are where a guest not a customer of the energy company, can make a payment towards the energy account of their choice.
Yet when Utilita fail to credit the account with energy, their system removes the purchase amount from the account balance of the payee, not the customer account.
The payee then asks for a refund or a credit to the energy account of the number given.
Utilita refuse, claiming, "We can only deal with the account holder!"
(Wrong again!)
Under the Sale Of Goods Act, the contract of sale is between the payee and the company/business, not the energy account holder the payment was being made to.
There then exists a stalemate and the payee is left without the funds or the energy credit on their meter.

There has to be some form of redress for the customer. Always.
Not in "Three working days!"
Not when a manager can be bothered to ring back - if they ever do - at a random time, over a 24 hour period.
NOW!

If you businesses don't like this, then shut up shop and close down.

Using your customers like this is not an option.
It's time this was recognised and not brushed under the carpet by the powers that be.
Making a customer a criminal is not the way to go.
Making businesses accountable for the way they behave, is.