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You are, no doubt, familiar with the saying, ‘The customer is always right!’ Well, there are all kinds of reasons to believe that ‘the customer is always right’ is wrong. And I have to agree with people who say that it’s wrong. But here’s the rub. If your interest is bringing about positive change between employees and customers, it’s still right! Let me explain.
In 1909, American business man Gordon Selfridge opened his Selfridge Department Store in London with the idea that shopping wasn’t just something people should do when they have to do it, but because they might want to do it if they enjoyed doing it enough.
The business logic was inescapable. The more a customer enjoyed the experience of shopping, the longer they might engage in it, and therefore the more they might spend in the doing of it. Using the pleasure of shopping as the means to this end, Selfridge designed his store to be user friendly in its layout, attractive in its decoration. warm and welcoming in that he staffed his store with people whose purpose was to help people, not sell products.
He took an advertising phrase that was then in use by the Ritz Hotel in London, the customer is never wrong, and turned it around to say, proactively and positively, that the customer is always right. This phrase, and the idea it stood for, soon found its way back home to the US where it caught on as an advertising slogan. The intent was to convey to customers that their business was welcome and they would be treated well in exchange for it.
There are at least two very good reasons to account for the widespread adoption of the Selfridge business directive that “the customer is always right.” First, we’re all somebody’s customer, and we all want to be treated well. It’s a great comfort to be able to tell oneself, in the presence of bad service and unhappy service reps that “They ought to treat me better, I’m right about this! And without me, they’re going to go out of business!”
Here is a second and more compelling reason to pay attention to customers as if they are always right: It’s because the customer has power. The power to walk away. The power to takes others away, through word of mouth. And in the case of the public sector, the power to stick around, become a crank, and make life for the people in that business difficult.
When you look at the source of bad customer behavior, you almost always find an event or incident in which the customer felt dissed, dismissed, or disrespected by a service provider. It’s possible, too, that in almost every incident, if you looked into the relationship of the service provider with their own company, you’d find an event or incident in which the employee providing the service felt dissed, dismissed, or disrespected by a coworker, supervisor or manager.
While it may be true that as many as 10% of unhappy customers and employees are just unhappy no matter what, a more useful approach to service is to decide that unhappy customers and employees are a true testing ground for all of us to develop our skills, our stamina, and our service ethic.
The option remains in any business to say “We’re sorry you’re not happy. We wish you well,” and admit that the relationship isn’t working for either side. The option also often exists to pleasantly refer unpleasant people to a competitor. This may be what Herb Kelleher intended, when he wrote to the chronically dissatisfied customer of his Southwest Airlines that ‘Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you. Love, Herb.’”
But at the end of the day, ending the relationship with an unhappy customer ought to be your last line of defense, not your first or even second resort. When all else fails, it can be a comfort to know you have this inevitable fall back position. Still, I think it better to fall forward (learn everything you can, apply it and keep going!). Otherwise, getting rid of unhappy customers by deciding to be right that they’re not right could become the easy way out with difficult consequences. That said, if you were my customer and disagreed about this, I just might let you be right.
After all, won’t your business be better served to find reasons to love your customers than to make excuses for losing them?
©Dr. Rick Kirschner, a bestselling author, speaker, trainer teletrainer and coach. Speaking and training clients include NASA, Starbucks, Texas Instruments. Dr. Kirschner is author of the 'Insider's Guide To The Art Of Persuasion.' For a limited time only, get a $49 value 1 hour audio on Dealing With Difficult People absolutely free! Visit http://theartofchange.com/promo for details!
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