Top 5 reasons why “The customer is Always Right” is wrong

[|Zach|]

http://positivesharing.com/2008/03/t...ight-is-wrong/

When the customer isn’t right - for your business

One woman who frequently flew on Southwest, was constantly disappointed with every aspect of the company’s operation. In fact, she became known as the “Pen Pal” because after every flight she wrote in with a complaint.

She didn’t like the fact that the company didn’t assign seats; she didn’t like the absence of a first-class section; she didn’t like not having a meal in flight; she didn’t like Southwest’s boarding procedure; she didn’t like the flight attendants’ sporty uniforms and the casual atmosphere.

Her last letter, reciting a litany of complaints, momentarily stumped Southwest’s customer relations people. They bumped it up to Herb’s [Kelleher, CEO of Southwest] desk, with a note: ‘This one’s yours.’

In sixty seconds, Kelleher wrote back and said, ‘Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you. Love, Herb.’”

The phrase “The customer is always right” was originally coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge’s department store in London in 1909, and is typically used by businesses to:

1. Convince customers that they will get good service at this company
2. Convince employees to give customers good service

Fortunately more and more businesses are abandoning this maxim - ironically because it leads to bad customer service.

Here are the top five reasons why “The customer is always right” is wrong.

1: It makes employees unhappy

Gordon Bethune is a brash Texan (as is Herb Kelleher, coincidentally) who is best known for turning Continental Airlines around “From Worst to First,” a story told in his book of the same title from 1998. He wanted to make sure that both customers and employees liked the way Continental treated them, so he made it very clear that the maxim “the customer is always right” didn’t hold sway at Continental.

In conflicts between employees and unruly customers he would consistently side with his people. Here’s how he puts it:

When we run into customers that we can’t reel back in, our loyalty is with our employees. They have to put up with this stuff every day. Just because you buy a ticket does not give you the right to abuse our employees . . .

We run more than 3 million people through our books every month. One or two of those people are going to be unreasonable, demanding jerks. When it’s a choice between supporting your employees, who work with you every day and make your product what it is, or some irate jerk who demands a free ticket to Paris because you ran out of peanuts, whose side are you going to be on?

You can’t treat your employees like serfs. You have to value them . . . If they think that you won’t support them when a customer is out of line, even the smallest problem can cause resentment.

So Bethune trusts his people over unreasonable customers. What I like about this attitude is that it balances employees and customers, where the “always right” maxim squarely favors the customer - which is not a good idea, because, as Bethune says, it causes resentment among employees.

Of course there are plenty of examples of bad employees giving lousy customer service. But trying to solve this by declaring the customer “always right” is counter-productive.
2: It gives abrasive customers an unfair advantage

Using the slogan “The customer is always right” abusive customers can demand just about anything - they’re right by definition, aren’t they? This makes the employees’ job that much harder, when trying to rein them in.

Also, it means that abusive people get better treatment and conditions than nice people. That always seemed wrong to me, and it makes much more sense to be nice to the nice customers to keep them coming back.
3: Some customers are bad for business

Most businesses think that “the more customers the better”. But some customers are quite simply bad for business.

Danish IT service provider ServiceGruppen proudly tell this story:

One of our service technicians arrived at a customer’s site for a maintenance task, and to his great shock was treated very rudely by the customer.

When he’d finished the task and returned to the office, he told management about his experience. They promptly cancelled the customer’s contract.

Just like Kelleher dismissed the irate lady who kept complaining (but somehow also kept flying on Southwest), ServiceGruppen fired a bad customer. Note that it was not even a matter of a financial calculation - not a question of whether either company would make or lose money on that customer in the long run. It was a simple matter of respect and dignity and of treating their employees right.
4: It results in worse customer service

Rosenbluth International, a corporate travel agency, took it even further. CEO Hal Rosenbluth wrote an excellent book about their approach called Put The Customer Second - Put your people first and watch’em kick butt.

Rosenbluth argues that when you put the employees first, they put the customers first. Put employees first, and they will be happy at work. Employees who are happy at work give better customer service because:

* They care more about other people, including customers
* They have more energy
* They are happy, meaning they are more fun to talk to and interact with
* They are more motivated

On the other hand, when the company and management consistently side with customers instead of with employees, it sends a clear message that:

* Employees are not valued
* That treating employees fairly is not important
* That employees have no right to respect from customers
* That employees have to put up with everything from customers

When this attitude prevails, employees stop caring about service. At that point, real good service is almost impossible - the best customers can hope for is fake good service. You know the kind I mean: corteous on the surface only.
5: Some customers are just plain wrong

Herb Kelleher agrees, as this passage From Nuts! the excellent book about Southwest Airlines shows:

Herb Kelleher […] makes it clear that his employees come first — even if it means dismissing customers. But aren’t customers always right? “No, they are not,” Kelleher snaps. “And I think that’s one of the biggest betrayals of employees a boss can possibly commit. The customer is sometimes wrong. We don’t carry those sorts of customers. We write to them and say, ‘Fly somebody else. Don’t abuse our people.’”

If you still think that the customer is always right, read this story from Bethune’s book “From Worst to First”:

A Continental flight attendant once was offended by a passenger’s child wearing a hat with Nazi and KKK emblems on it. It was pretty offensive stuff, so the attendant went to the kid’s father and asked him to put away the hat. “No,” the guy said. “My kid can wear what he wants, and I don’t care who likes it.”

The flight attendant went into the cockpit and got the first officer, who explained to the passenger the FAA regulation that makes it a crime to interfere with the duties of a crew member. The hat was causing other passengers and the crew discomfort, and that interfered with the flight attendant’s duties. The guy better put away the hat.

He did, but he didn’t like it. He wrote many nasty letters. We made every effort to explain our policy and the federal air regulations, but he wasn’t hearing it. He even showed up in our executive suite to discuss the matter with me. I let him sit out there. I didn’t want to see him and I didn’t want to listen to him. He bought a ticket on our airplane, and that means we’ll take him where he wants to go. But if he’s going to be rude and offensive, he’s welcome to fly another airline.

The fact is that some customers are just plain wrong, that businesses are better of without them, and that managers siding with unreasonable customers over employees is a very bad idea, that results in worse customer service.

So put your people first. And watch them put the customers first.

[jjchieffan]

The woman in the story sounds like my wife when she eats out. I am constantly embarrassed by her throwing a fit about her food. It ranges from sending her fries back at McDonald's 90% of the time to her food being too done, not done enough, or just doesn't taste right at a sit down restaurant. I don't think Pizza Hut has ever got her pizza right the first time. And she wonders why I never want to take her out to dinner.

[KcMizzou]

Originally Posted by jjchieffan

The woman in the story sounds like my wife when she eats out. I am constantly embarrassed by her throwing a fit about her food. It ranges from sending her fries back at McDonald's 90% of the time to her food being too done, not done enough, or just doesn't taste right at a sit down restaurant. I don't think Pizza Hut has ever got her pizza right the first time. And she wonders why I never want to take her out to dinner.

Let alone cook for her.

[BIG K]

Originally Posted by KcMizzou

Dude...

So.. say they actually were mistreated. I've read stories about people who have legitimate complaints about such things...

Rather than try and strong-arm them, why not just make sure you were in the right, and tell your side of the story?

Don't get me wrong, I'm no cop hater... that just seems shady. And IMO law enforcement employees, more than any other group of people, should not engage in such tactics.

It was just a joke my friend. I run into 'ex-clients' everyday, pretty much nothing but good things are exchanged. If I was a bad cop, there would be alot of hostility when seeing them. Instead, they adress me as "How are you Mr. ******?" I was one of the better cops.

[KcMizzou]

Originally Posted by BIG K

It was just a joke my friend. I run into 'ex-clients' everyday, pretty much nothing but good things are exchanged. If I was a bad cop, there would be alot of hostility when seeing them. Instead, they adress me as "How are you Mr. ******?" I was one of the better cops.

Right on.

I know being a cop isn't easy. (My step dad is a detective) Hell... If getting disrespected at my job now and then upsets me, I doubt I could handle yours. I suppose you get desensitized to it after a while.

Thanks for doin' what you do. And try to keep in mind... some people you meet up with are just normal people having the worst day of their life. (Others are worthless dirtbags. You can probably tell the difference pretty quickly.)

[BIG K]

Originally Posted by KcMizzou

Right on.

I know being a cop isn't easy. (My step dad is a detective) Hell... If getting disrespected at my job now and then upsets me, I doubt I could handle yours. I suppose you get desensitized to it after a while.

Thanks for doin' what you do. And try to keep in mind... some people you meet up with are just normal people having the worst day of their life. (Others are worthless dirtbags. You can probably tell the difference pretty quickly.)

Thank you for your words. Honestly, like I used to tell those in that situation, "The only difference between you and me, is that I NEVER got caught!" We are all humans...

But yes, I did get desensitized to the repeat offenders, especially those who are leaving their wifes and children behind....

[CosmicPal]

I've worked in tech support, customer service, and sales. Everyone I've ever worked with have said the same: "You treat me like a human being when contacting me, and I'll provide you the best service possible. You treat me like sh*t, don't be surprised if I treat you the same."

I know people in the restaurant business who've said they've done some nasty things to a person's order when that person treated them unkindly. Based on those stories alone, I'll never treat a wait person with disrespect.

[Bugeater]

Originally Posted by CosmicPal

I've worked in tech support, customer service, and sales. Everyone I've ever worked with have said the same: "You treat me like a human being when contacting me, and I'll provide you the best service possible. You treat me like sh*t, don't be surprised if I treat you the same."

I know people in the restaurant business who've said they've done some nasty things to a person's order when that person treated them unkindly. Based on those stories alone, I'll never treat a wait person with disrespect.

This isn't directed at you unless you've done it yourself, but a customer being a prick doesn't in any way shape or form justify ****ing with their food. If the management doesn't have the balls to tell them to take a hike then tough shit.

[Discuss Thrower]

The tag for this thread is pretty comical.

Anyway, from a customer's POV (though I've probably seen enough in my younger days at the phone company to tell from an service side view) at restaurants, I always assume the waiters automatically hate me, don't make too much of an issue of anything (I am a messed up eater, so it's always fun to explain how I don't want such and such on my plate), and always tip well. And, in a karmic way, it's worked. I've never felt the need to not tip someone or downgrade their tip because of poor service.

With tech support, I try and be as cordial as possible, thank them for helping me profusely, make small talk when either side is waiting for someone. When the laptop I am typing this up went down for no apparent reason, I was helped by I am assuming to be a Hispanic immigrant (he sounded like Luis Guzman), and he did a good job of fixing my computer (juggled the RAM sticks around). I emailed Alienware and noted how I appreciated his help.

[DenverChief]

Originally Posted by listopencil

I had the misfortune of dealing with people like this in the fast food industry. One time I overheard three customers ordering and they were obviously under the influence of alcohol. Not drunk but a little buzzed. I made eye contact with my register person and switched myself in to finish taking the order. I made sure to read back the order but they couldn't be bothered listening. I made a point of not completing the transaction until I had read it back. Sure enough they brought it back and complained, saying that they were missing stuff. They weren't missing anything they had payed for, and I told them I'd have to charge them if they wanted more food. They got loud and abusive. They cussed, tried to throw the register at me and tried to grab my tie. I threw them out.

you should have called the police and had them at the very least trespassed

[PhillyChiefFan]

After working in retail for years, I COMPLETELY agree with this. People can be rude and obnoxious and managers should take the side of the employee in some cases.

I worked for Enterprise Rent-A-Car as an intern for a summer, and it was hell on earth because people wanted EVERYTHING for free and my boss was a d*ck to me because I didn't want to bend over backwards for some a*shole everytime there was a oak leaf stem in the trunk.

[Dartgod]

It says one hundred percent guaranteed, you moron!

Mister, if you don't shut up I'm gonna kick one hundred percent of your ass!

[Dartgod]

I have one funny story from my years as an auto parts counterman. I worked for a local chain of 4 stores in Johnson County. The owner was a blast to work for, he didn't take crap from vendors, customers or anyone.

He had each one of his four stores located near a Western Auto. One day this douche comes in and wanted an air filter for his car. He was bitching about the price; wondering out loud if it was even the right one; just generally being a dick about everything. He ended up leaving, saying that he was going next door to Western Auto to get it cheaper.

He came back shortly afterwards to get the filter we had, because WA was out of stock. The filter was still sitting on the counter and my boss picks it up and flings it behind him down the aisle and tells him, "Sorry, I don't have that one in stock". The dude was flabbergasted. He was like, "but thats it right back there on the floor." My boss wouldn't give in, and he had to leave without his filter. It was funny as hell.

I can also remember dropping commercial customers because they would abuse our parts drivers on a regular basis.

[CosmicPal]

I generally live by a few rules when I'm the customer:

1. Never piss off anyone handling your food and/or drinks.

2. Never piss off anyone who is controlling the vehicle you are a passenger of.

3. Never piss off anyone who is working on your vehicle or house.

4. And lastly, never, under any circumstances, piss off the chick who is going down on you.

[Mr. Plow]

Originally Posted by CosmicPal

I've worked in tech support, customer service, and sales. Everyone I've ever worked with have said the same: "You treat me like a human being when contacting me, and I'll provide you the best service possible. You treat me like sh*t, don't be surprised if I treat you the same."

I know people in the restaurant business who've said they've done some nasty things to a person's order when that person treated them unkindly. Based on those stories alone, I'll never treat a wait person with disrespect.

That's the rule I try to follow. If you want to talk rationally to me, I'll listen and do my best to help. But, if you are going to be an asshole, don't expect me to go 1 inch out of my way.

[rockymtnchief]

This reminds me of a gal that threw a fuss and was yelling in a cafe because her chicken fried steak wasn't made out of chicken. The waitress, manager, cook, and about 3 customers explained to her that it's a chicken fried STEAK. She argued that chicken fried steak is ALWAYS made of chicken. She wanted a free meal for the whole table of 4, threatened to sue, and threatened to buy the place and fire everyone.
To everyones delight, the waitress took her plate away and the manager kicked her out.