Sweaty Mexican Landscaper Pounds Clients Ass Again

When the customer isn't right – for your business

I woman who frequently flew on Southwest, was constantly disappointed with every aspect of the company's functioning. In fact, she became known every bit the "Pen Pal" because after every flying she wrote in with a complaint.

She didn't like the fact that the company didn't assign seats; she didn't similar the absence of a commencement-class department; she didn't similar non having a meal in flight; she didn't like Southwest'due south boarding procedure; she didn't like the flying attendants' sporty uniforms and the casual atmosphere.

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

In sixty seconds, Kelleher wrote back and said, 'Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you lot. Love, Herb.'"

The phrase "The customer is always right" was originally coined past 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 become good service at this company
2. Convince employees to requite customers good service

Fortunately more and more businesses are abandoning this maxim – ironically considering information technology leads to bad customer service.

Here are the meridian v reasons why "The customer is e'er right" is incorrect.

i: It makes employees unhappy

Gordon Bethune is a advised 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 brand certain that both customers and employees liked the manner Continental treated them, so he made it very clear that the maxim "the customer is e'er correct" didn't concur sway at Continental.

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

When nosotros run into customers that we tin't reel dorsum in, our loyalty is with our employees. They take to put upward with this stuff every 24-hour interval. Merely because you buy a ticket does not give yous the right to abuse our employees . . .

We run more three one thousand thousand people through our books every month. 1 or two of those people are going to exist unreasonable, enervating jerks. When it'due south a option betwixt supporting your employees, who piece of work with you every day and brand your product what it is, or some irate jerk who demands a costless ticket to Paris because you ran out of peanuts, whose side are you going to be on?

You can't treat your employees similar serfs. Y'all have to value them . . . If they retrieve that you won't back up them when a customer is out of line, even the smallest problem tin cause resentment.

And so Bethune trusts his people over unreasonable customers. What I like well-nigh this attitude is that information technology balances employees and customers, where the "ever right" maxim squarely favors the client – which is not a practiced idea, considering, every bit Bethune says, it causes resentment amongst employees.

Of course at that place are plenty of examples of bad employees giving lousy client service. Only trying to solve this by declaring the customer "always right" is counter-productive.

ii: It gives abrasive customers an unfair advantage

Using the slogan "The customer is e'er right" abusive customers can demand simply about anything – they're correct by definition, aren't they? This makes the employees' job that much harder, when trying to rein them in.

Also, information technology means that calumniating people get meliorate treatment and conditions than squeamish people. That always seemed wrong to me, and it makes much more than sense to be squeamish to the nice customers to go on them coming dorsum.

3: Some customers are bad for business organisation

Most businesses think that "the more than customers the better". But some customers are quite only bad for business.

Danish Information technology 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 past the customer.

When he'd finished the chore and returned to the role, he told management virtually his feel. They promptly cancelled the customer's contract.

Just similar Kelleher dismissed the irate lady who kept complaining (simply somehow also kept flight on Southwest), ServiceGruppen fired a bad customer. Note that information technology was not even a matter of a fiscal calculation – not a question of whether either company would make or lose money on that customer in the long run. Information technology was a simple matter of respect and dignity and of treating their employees right.

4: Information technology results in worse client service

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

Rosenbluth argues that when yous put the employees outset, they put the customers first. Put employees first, and they volition be happy at work. Employees who are happy at piece of work give amend customer service because:

• They care more virtually other people, including customers
• They have more energy
• They are happy, significant they are more fun to talk to and collaborate 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 bulletin that:

• Employees are not valued
• That treating employees adequately is not of import
• That employees take no right to respect from customers
• That employees take to put upward with everything from customers

When this attitude prevails, employees stop caring about service. At that signal, real good service is almost impossible – the all-time customers can hope for is faux good service. You lot know the kind I hateful: corteous on the surface just.

v: Some customers are just plain incorrect

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

Herb Kelleher […] makes it clear that his employees come offset — fifty-fifty if information technology ways dismissing customers. But aren't customers always correct? "No, they are non," Kelleher snaps. "And I think that'due south 1 of the biggest betrayals of employees a dominate 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 recollect that the customer is always right, read this story from Bethune'southward volume "From Worst to Showtime":

A Continental flight bellboy one time was offended by a passenger's child wearing a hat with Nazi and KKK emblems on it. Information technology was pretty offensive stuff, so the attendant went to the kid's father and asked him to put abroad the hat. "No," the guy said. "My kid can vesture what he wants, and I don't intendance who likes it."

The flight bellboy went into the cockpit and got the first officer, who explained to the passenger the FAA regulation that makes it a offense to interfere with the duties of a crew fellow member. The hat was causing other passengers and the crew discomfort, and that interfered with the flying attendant'due south duties. The guy ameliorate put away the lid.

He did, but he didn't like it. He wrote many nasty messages. We made every try to explain our policy and the federal air regulations, just he wasn't hearing it. He even showed up in our executive suite to discuss the affair with me. I let him sit out at that place. I didn't desire to see him and I didn't want to mind to him. He bought a ticket on our airplane, and that ways we'll take him where he wants to go. But if he's going to exist rude and offensive, he's welcome to wing some other airline.

The fact is that some customers are only evidently wrong, that businesses are meliorate of without them, and that managers siding with unreasonable customers over employees is a very bad idea, that results in worse client service.

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

UPDATE:
This post has spawned a bang-up discussion hither and one some other websites.
Digg
"One of the consistent back up statements of "The Customer is Ever Right" is the amount of dollars information technology costs to replace a customer. It costs more to replace a customer than to retain one virtually times. However, it also costs a lot more than to recruit, rent, and railroad train a new employee than it does to continue one happy."

Kinkoids Unite – a site for Kinko's workers
"In my region, when an employee is mentioned in a customer complaint, he/she has to apologize to all eleven center managers in a briefing call whether they were wrong or wronged."

AdultDVDTalk (huh?)
"Unfortunately though, most companies in the customer service arena no longer fifty-fifty teach the basics of customer service. They but assume that it is a mutual-sense matter. Having spent 20 years interviewing task applicants, I can also say that there is no such thing as mutual sense! Just take a look at the high schoolhouse and college grads showing upwards for task interviews in jeans and tee-shirts or chewing gum…or my favorite was the young lady who excused herself to answer her cell phone and carry on a cursory but totally unnecessary conversation!"

Reddit
"On a very, very small-scale number of occasions in my various service roles over the years, I've asked customers to leave the establishment because they were incorribly argumentative, hostile and abusive, and flat-out refused to accept any endeavour to satisfy them. In these cases, the people were shopping for a fight rather than a commodity."

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Source: https://positivesharing.com/2006/07/why-the-customer-is-always-right-results-in-bad-customer-service/

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