The Customer’s Always Right…right?
Coined by a guy named Harry Gordon Selfridge in 1909, the popular saying “The customer is always right,” is still used by many businesses today to (ideally) do two things:
- Convince employees to give excellent customer service through their skills and training (Keep the customer happy!).
- Convince the potential customers that they will receive excellent service.
But the customer can be wrong too…
Bad for Business
At some point in all of our lives, we’ve either been the irate customer or have had to deal with one. Usually people don’t get too out of hand, but there are some customers who really take it to the extreme and make employees and employers alike wonder, “Is this customer really worth it?” The “it” in that statement refers to how irate customers can actually be wrong sometimes. If you ask any business owner, I’m sure they could tell you horror stories about customers that were bad for business; and it wasn’t even because the service was bad. It was worse than that; it was because some people are just downright disrespectful!
When the Customer is Wrong
The following are some reasons why the customer isn’t always “right”:
- Where is your loyalty? In conflicts that sometimes arise between employees and customers, where do you draw the line between the irate customer and the employee who is getting his/her ear chewed off? In the past, and even today, many companies will actually side with the customer without fully investigating the situation.
- Company morale is low. When companies choose to defend a customer over an employee time and time again, this can ruin employee morale, making the employee feel as if he/she is not being fairly supported.
- There is a lack of motivation. Think about this for a second. If your supervisor hardly ever took your side to defend you whenever a customer got upset, wouldn’t it make you upset and then after a while make you THAT much more unmotivated? When companies constantly put the customer first, they tend to neglect the very people who are working for them, who are partially responsible for that company’s success!
Secrets for Success
An increasing number of Internet marketing businesses are finding that by putting their employees first and the customer second, that employees are happier. Nowadays, the relationship between customer and employee, employee and employer, has more to do with respect versus being “right”. In the Internet marketing world, it’s no different. While a lot of us are still very customer service-oriented, we also realize the value in putting employee needs first.
Studies have shown that the more happy a person is, the more energy they have. People who are happier are also more pleasurable to be around and are usually more motivated, thus functioning better in any work environment. If an employee knows that their employer stands behind them 100% (when it’s fair of course), then they feel more valued and appreciated- all of which translates to better business.
March 18 2008 05:00 am | Business Networking
The Customer’s Always Right…right? | buckfieldinn.com on 19 Mar 2008 at 9:10 am #
[...] it comes to customer service, the customer’s always right…right? Wrong. Some customers can be wrong and even downright rude, so does that mean that employees [...]