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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