Born Again Christian Harrassing Walmart Customers

When the customer isn't right – for your business

One woman who oft 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 flying 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 starting time-class section; she didn't like not having a meal in flight; she didn't like Southwest'due south boarding procedure; she didn't like the flight attendants' sporty uniforms and the coincidental atmosphere.

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

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

The phrase "The customer is e'er right" was originally coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge'south section store in London in 1909, and is typically used by businesses to:

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

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

Here are the top v 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 Kickoff," 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, and then he made it very clear that the maxim "the customer is always correct" 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 encounter customers that we tin can't reel back in, our loyalty is with our employees. They have to put up with this stuff every day. Just considering you purchase a ticket does not requite you the correct to corruption our employees . . .

We run more than iii million people through our books every month. I or two of those people are going to be unreasonable, demanding jerks. When information technology's a pick between supporting your employees, who work with you every day and make your production what it is, or some irate jerk who demands a gratis ticket to Paris considering you ran out of peanuts, whose side are you going to be on?

You lot tin can't care for your employees like serfs. You have to value them . . . If they think that you lot won't support them when a customer is out of line, even the smallest problem can crusade resentment.

And so Bethune trusts his people over unreasonable customers. What I like about this mental attitude is that it balances employees and customers, where the "always right" maxim squarely favors the customer – which is not a skillful 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.

ii: It gives abrasive customers an unfair reward

Using the slogan "The customer is always right" abusive customers can need just well-nigh annihilation – they're correct by definition, aren't they? This makes the employees' chore that much harder, when trying to rein them in.

Likewise, it means that abusive people get better treatment and conditions than overnice people. That always seemed incorrect to me, and it makes much more sense to be squeamish to the dainty customers to go along them coming dorsum.

3: Some customers are bad for concern

Almost businesses recollect that "the more customers the better". Just some customers are quite simply bad for business organization.

Danish Information technology service provider ServiceGruppen proudly tell this story:

One of our service technicians arrived at a customer'due south site for a maintenance task, and to his great shock was treated very rudely past the customer.

When he'd finished the task and returned to the role, he told direction nigh his experience. They promptly cancelled the customer'southward contract.

Merely similar Kelleher dismissed the irate lady who kept complaining (merely somehow as well kept flying on Southwest), ServiceGruppen fired a bad customer. Note that it was not even a matter of a financial adding – 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: It results in worse customer service

Rosenbluth International, a corporate travel agency, took information technology even further. CEO Hal Rosenbluth wrote an splendid book most their approach called Put The Customer Second – Put your people kickoff and watch�em kick butt.

Rosenbluth argues that when you put the employees first, they put the customers start. Put employees showtime, and they will be happy at work. Employees who are happy at work give improve client service considering:

• 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 visitor and management consistently side with customers instead of with employees, information technology sends a clear message that:

• Employees are non 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 finish caring about service. At that bespeak, real good service is almost impossible – the best customers can hope for is fake skillful service. You know the kind I mean: corteous on the surface merely.

5: Some customers are just manifestly wrong

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

Herb Kelleher […] makes it clear that his employees come first — fifty-fifty if it means dismissing customers. Merely aren't customers always correct? "No, they are not," Kelleher snaps. "And I think that'due south one of the biggest betrayals of employees a boss can perchance 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 nonetheless remember that the customer is always right, read this story from Bethune's book "From Worst to First":

A Continental flight bellboy in one case was offended by a passenger's child wearing a hat with Nazi and KKK emblems on information technology. Information technology was pretty offensive stuff, then the attendant went to the kid's male parent and asked him to put away the lid. "No," the guy said. "My kid can wear what he wants, and I don't intendance who likes it."

The flight attendant went into the cockpit and got the starting time 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 lid.

He did, but he didn't similar it. He wrote many nasty letters. We made every effort to explain our policy and the federal air regulations, merely he wasn't hearing it. He even showed up in our executive suite to talk over the matter with me. I let him sit down out in that location. I didn't want to meet him and I didn't want to listen to him. He bought a ticket on our airplane, and that ways we'll accept him where he wants to become. Merely if he's going to be rude and offensive, he's welcome to fly another airline.

The fact is that some customers are just obviously incorrect, 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 customer service.

Then put your people first. And picket them put the customers first.

UPDATE:
This postal service has spawned a great word here and one some other websites.
Digg
"Ane of the consistent back up statements of "The Customer is Ever Right" is the corporeality of dollars it costs to supercede a customer. It costs more to supercede a client than to retain one well-nigh times. However, information technology also costs a lot more to recruit, hire, and train a new employee than information technology does to go along 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 11 center managers in a conference call whether they were incorrect or wronged."

AdultDVDTalk (huh?)
"Unfortunately though, most companies in the customer service arena no longer fifty-fifty teach the basics of client service. They just presume that it is a common-sense thing. Having spent 20 years interviewing job applicants, I can likewise say that there is no such thing as mutual sense! But take a await at the high schoolhouse and college grads showing up for chore interviews in jeans and tee-shirts or chewing gum…or my favorite was the young lady who excused herself to reply her cell phone and acquit on a cursory just totally unnecessary conversation!"

Reddit
"On a very, very small number of occasions in my various service roles over the years, I've asked customers to go out the institution because they were incorribly belligerent, hostile and calumniating, and flat-out refused to accept any attempt to satisfy them. In these cases, the people were shopping for a fight rather than a article."

If you lot liked this mail, in that location'southward a adept risk you'll besides enjoy:

• When is it time to leave a bad job? Find your quitting indicate.
• The cult of overwork
• Why �Motivation past Pizza� Doesn�t Work
• Superlative 10 reasons why happiness at work is the ultimate productivity booster

deweyexpet1965.blogspot.com

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

Share this post