If you worked in customer service; what do you think of the phrase "The customer is always right"?

[G-Force]

If you worked any job that prides itself on customer service, where do you stand on this issue? Is it a good thing for businesses to do their best to make sure every customer is happy in order to prevent them from leaving behind bad reviews and spreading ill feelings toward other potential buyers, or do you see it as a system that is easily expolitable by complainers?

While I do agree that you should keep your customers happy (especially if the company is at fault and is trying to make admends). I gotta say that on the other side of things I have worked at a few places that will automatically side with the customer and will bend over backwards to please them but don't make the same allowances for their employees. In addition it seems like the complainers are being rewarded more than our coopertive customers who don't cause problems. Shouldn't those guys get more for not being jerks and being plesant to deal with?

What do you think of this stuff?

 

[JoJo]

What we need to remember is that "the customer is always right" is not a statement to be taken literally. Clearly, the customer is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. "The customer is always right" is a business strategy and in my opinion a usually sucessful one, a small sacrifice in immediate profit is worthwhile as it's likely the customer will return at a later day to spend more.

People really do not like being proved wrong, even if they clearly are in the wrong. It therefore follows that while it isn't necessarily fair, it's worthwhile for a company who cares about it's profit margins to bend over backwards for complaining customers, or risk losing that customer forever. If complainers do get a better deal than regular customers, well it's unfortunate but profit is more important to most companies than fairness.

 

[Rylee Fox]

If the customer was always right, a random customer could walk upto the counter, say they should get everything for free and because they are right, they get everything free. =P

Seriously though, its something that doesn't work I think. Where I work customers tend to make up lies in order to get free stuff. We almost always know when its just them scamming us, but the big bosses have us deal with it like a real complaint anyway, which only causes more people to do it knowing they can get away with it.

 

[EeveeElectro]

The customer is important and we should try keep them happy, but they're not always right. We should provide them a satisfactory service but if one is clearly taking the piss they shouldn't be able to get away with it.
Where I work someone could rummage through the bins for a sandwich wrapper of ours, take it in and say they found a hair or something but ate the whole sandwich so he can't prove it and we'd have to give him another for free or refund him.

I got in trouble for standing up for myself when a customer who cam in 20 minutes late for breakfast started calling me lazy and stupid.
To be fair, I didn't handle it very well, I was very close to shouting and swearing in his face.

Unfortunately most companies stand by that rule and the really disgusting people out there will exploit it as much as they can.

 

[Sixcess]

The customer is frequently wrong. More than that the customer is frequently lazy, stupid, greedy and/or dishonest.

What I actually dislike though is when a company claims to support this 'policy' but has nothing in place to allow the rules to be bent/disregarded altogether to accomodate said customers, because if you're going to try and keep almost every customer happy then you will have to bend or break your own rules and procedures to do so, as a matter of routine.

Making a big deal out of such simply puts employees in a bad situation. The previous company I worked for had a culture that could best be described as "The customer is usually wrong... unless they make a fuss or raise a complaint in which case they're right, but it's your fault for having not talked them down first."

Which is bullshit, of course, because once word gets out that a company will back down if pushed hard enough then people will push as a matter of routine.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Unfortunately most companies stand by that rule and the really disgusting people out there will exploit it as much as they can.

this is the sad thing about it, i really like it when companies/managers tell the customer to go blow it out their ass, because unfortunately the lowest of scum do their upmost to bully customer service in their favor.

if someone is being reasonable or even nice, i'll do everything in my power to help them out and get them some deals, if they are being a prick i'd love nothing more than to take a bag of shit and throw it in their face.

 

[TheBlueRabbit]

It had managed to turn most customers into nothing more than entitled twits that will try anything they can to get something for nothing. I've worked in customer service type jobs in many different fields over the past 23 years and seen it way too many times.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yeah it is not always the case, sure I get you should never pissed off/ upset the customer but that doesn't mean they should act like a dick/ high and mighty about it.
Just to named an examples from my experience at it-

The customer is wrong- Two couple came to the store half an hour til closing time. They wanted the dishes we sold to be discounted because they were going to buy ten of them which some store do discount if you're going to buy them in huge quantity. I tell them we cannot do that because it is not within our company policies to do so which they got annoyed. They then demanded discount on the fact that some of the dishes had spots on them that cannot be removed.
Considering that the store I worked in is known for being cheap/ second rated/ lower quality branded or branded stuff but cheap you would lower your expectation on the product quality. While that is in our policies to do so (we did give them the discount) but they should know what they are getting throught from entering it.
They also got me to inspect each dishes and carrying up to do when I should of been vacuuming the store by then. Ok to be fair they didn't know about that but I don't see why they didn't inspect and carry the dishes themselves since they were not old nor fragile people.

The customer is right- Last week we were getting rid of our children books by marking them down to 50p and displaying them. We were understand but had alot of books to put up. We make sure to scan them as not all of them were exactly 50p and we did left the storage that contain the stock at the shelf where it was display which we did say that the book in that storage were also 50p but didn't get round to marking the price drop. A customer did came up to pay for a book but the til scan says it was £1 which I told it was at that price but she still wanted it for 50p.
I rang up the manager about it and she alter the price. I feel this situation was justify (unlike above) because we were careless at the price labelling (like I say we were understand while having alot of task to do and aswell being a busy day). Beside at the end of the day we were trying to get rid of the book so the alter price didn't matter too much seeing how there were load of customers buying the reduse children books.

 

[Dragoon]

What we need to remember is that "the customer is always right" is not a statement to be taken literally. Clearly, the customer is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. "The customer is always right" is a business strategy and in my opinion a usually successful one, a small sacrifice in immediate profit is worthwhile as it's likely the customer will return at a later day to spend more.

JoJo's got it, basically kiss the customers asses and keep them happy, even if they don't deserve it.

 

[Vegosiux]

Take that phrase with a grain of salt. What it really means is

"Treat every customer as if they were right, because a happy customer is a customer that will spend more money at your place."

So yes. The customers are sometimes wrong. Your job is to treat them as if they're right - unless you'd breach the corporate policy[footnote]Assuming that corporate policy does not breach the law of course[/footnote] doing that. Remember, it's never you that has had it with them and their retarded antics. The only thing that keeps you from giving them what they want is corporate policy.

It's a drudgery. I know, I've worked customer service jobs before. But, no matter how wrong a customer is, as long as they do not try to make you breach corporate policy, you suck it up and indulge them. It's in your job description. A sucky, sucky job description. You can complain to your coworkers. You can complain to your boss. Your friends. But never, ever, ever flip off a customer that's not requesting something you're not allowed to do.

This is why once I become the world's supreme ruler, I will make it mandatory that everyone works a customer service job for at least a year, under pain of death. Maybe that way people will learn just how disgusting they are when they treat people who prepare their food, make their coffee, and clean up their mess like second-class citizens.

 

[Beautiful Tragedy]

It's bogus! I worked in retail for over 15 years (most of it management) so I get trying to please the customer, and keep repeat business, but yeah, that saying is BS.

 

[G-Force]

I love how "special service" is being seen as standard as opposed to being special. When you go out of your way to move mountains to really please them it's viewed as simply "part of your job" despite the tremendous about of policy and effort needed

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I've worked at two Best Buy stores in my life. At one I was a cashier, and at the other I was a portable electronics sales associate. In my experience working retail customer service positions, I find that the people who use that saying are typically the most wrong of all the customers who are ever wrong about something. I've never heard a reasonable customer use that phrase, and I never went out of my way to help unreasonable customers. Regardless of whether or not the customer is right or wrong, if you behave like a decent human being and treat me with respect, yeah, I'd bend over backwards to help you out. But if you start ranting about how the customer is always right... yeah... I'm going to put on a faked smile and maintain pleasant composure... as I do the bare minimum required to get you out of my face. People that treat customer service representatives like shit DON'T DESERVE TO BE REWARDED FOR IT.

 

[Erttheking]

I work in retail, and I have to say, the phrase "the customer is always right" can go fuck itself with a spiky dildo. The customer is not always right, the customer is a selfish, stupid, fucking asshole.

 

[Aedes]

Never worked with customer service but you know, there's a [a href="http://notalwaysright.com/"]whole site dedicated to show the customer is not always right[/a].

So no, I don't believe that phrase. And, as people here already mentioned, the ones who uses that phrase are usually the most not deserving to say it in the first place.

 

[FalloutJack]

It's really a misnomer. It should read "The Customer HAS a right." instead. That way, they have the right to complain, but we don't have to pander to them or be nice about it, because logic should prevail over their stupidity and we should feel like we've accomplished something.

 

[Vegosiux]

Okay well, seeing the comments here, I'll just leave this here. [http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-you-suck-at-customer-service-without-realizing-it/]

And I've worked customer service. I've been working bars and restaurants from age 14 to age 20 before starting on different jobs (thanks to the marvelous employment system over here that sucks). It's a bitter pill to swallow; but while the customer definitely is not always right, unless they're out of bounds, you treat them as if they're right. It's a dirty job, but there's a lot of it to go around.

Yet, do not despair, I feel for everyone who needs to put up with such stuff, so as I said;

Once I become the world's supreme ruler, I will make it mandatory that everyone works a customer service job for at least a year, under pain of death. Maybe that way people will learn just how disgusting they are when they treat people who prepare their food, make their coffee, and clean up their mess like second-class citizens.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

In the words of Eugene H. Crabs- "The money is always right."

 

[Ratties]

A little bitter when it comes to the idea of work. Really don't care about the company at all. Can do all that you require of me, thats it. I don't really care about good customer service. Everything is going as it should be, they don't even have to say hello. After all, they don't care about me, I don't care about them.