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Why "The Customer Is Always Right" Is So Utterly Wrong
AngelHedgie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
It seems that a lot of the stories in the Failures of Humanity thread focus around the abuse that retail clerks take from the public that they serve - it is astounding the sort of abuse that people are expected to take because they work in retail. In large part, this is due to the refrain that has seemingly become a mantra in the industry - "the customer is always right". This mantra has caused more headaches for retailers than anything else I can think of, and for little gain whatsoever.
This article explains the five reasons "the customer is always right" fails:
I've also heard a new variant as well - "The customer is not always right, but when they're wrong, let tem be wrong with dignity." While I do appreciate the acknowledgment that customers can, in fact, be wrong, it still has the coddling aspect of the original. Bad customers should never be tolerated - they should be asked to not continue their patronage, because in the long run, it's just not worth keeping a bad customer.
This article explains the five reasons "the customer is always right" fails:
- It makes employees unhappy. (This, by the way, is a contender for Understatement of the Year.)
- It gives abrasive customers an unfair advantage.
- Some customers are bad for business.
- It results in worse customer service.
- Some customers are just plain wrong.
I've also heard a new variant as well - "The customer is not always right, but when they're wrong, let tem be wrong with dignity." While I do appreciate the acknowledgment that customers can, in fact, be wrong, it still has the coddling aspect of the original. Bad customers should never be tolerated - they should be asked to not continue their patronage, because in the long run, it's just not worth keeping a bad customer.
XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
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The real problem is the stockholders. The stockholders are always right. Even when they're dead wrong, they're always right, like the umpire in a baseball game.
'Customers are always right, assholes get escorted outside by security.'
Though that never really happened and he just had to deal with being yelled at until they finally left then, we'd mock them. It sucked when he got transferred to a different store.
A customer wants things for as free as possible and the company wants to make as much money as possible.
I never asked for this!
At my store people give us shit because they can get away with and they know it. God forbid Bealls would ever say no to them. "It's too hot in here? Oh, have a gift card." "The associate didn't ring you up fast enough? Have a gift card." "You want to return things you bought two years ago without a reciept and want us to give you full price for them instead of surplus? Well.... Okay, we'll take it back and no- stop complaining please! Have a gift card!"
It's ridiculous. Customers get away with all sorts of stuff where I work. We'll take back shoes that have been worn for three months and start to wear and give them back what they paid.
That attitude and the end results of it are why Friedman and his ilk will in the end be only a footnote in the history of economics.
The service staff have it very bad tho.
Would you like me to get my manager?
I work at Bealls (the one in Florida only). We're like a faux department store that really only includes clothing, some kitchen and home things and a few "gourmet" food items.
Granted, I used to love my job but it's gotten ridiculous for reasons that don't only include customers.
I will also contend that evil customers lead to worse costumer service. I've gotten to the point where if a customer is unjustifiably horrible to me or one of my associates I will talk back to them or make their experience as difficult as possible and have no qualms about it. I'm shocked I've not gotten reports of the bad kind yet.
But my associates and myself only need to take so much. If we've been nothing but accomodating and the customer is still being evil then they no longer deserve to be treated well and I'm not putting up with it. If the managers wanted to avoid this they never should have promoted me.
Did you know that company wide at The Home Depot there is a three strikes rule for any salaried manager (assistant and general) wherein if they get three customer complaints against them they will be fired?
And so they bend over backwards regardless of the complaint.
Once you're in a large enough population you can pretty much pick and choose your customers.
I've also only lost my cool once while working, and even then it wasn't at the person who deserved it. As soon as he left the store (I think i've blocked out why because of how angry it made me) i basically growl/shouted "son of a bitch". One of the other people in the store started clapping.
honestly the trick is just to wait till the offender is out of earshot and then let the curses fly. I've shocked co-workers white faced before because I am the perfect example of politeness to their face and then uttering a stream of curses so foul the devil himself would blush right after they walk away
The weirdest thing they do is as follows: when a customer wants to return something without a reciept we issue them a store credit and the item gets credited to them at the lowest sale price in the last 90 days. (THAT bit of news was exciting since with the old system we let customers bring it back for that day's sale price and people would conviniently lose reciepts when things were no longer on sale...)
But when you first ring up the return on the new system it shows you TODAY's price, then you have to hit "total" then you have to enter in all the customer's information (name, number, address, license) and THEN it searches for the lowest sales price that it will approve for.
Now the customers have a screen they can watch all this on and the other day I had a lady with no recipt returning three things. Before I entered her information she was getting a67 refund and after it searched it showed 55. She had to sign to authorize it but she refused and pitched a fit because the refund price was lower.
The MOD finally had to be called over because the customer didn't get my 15 minutes of trying to explain to her why it did that (when I told her it would before starting the return) and the MOD was going to make me go back and give her the other prices. That lady looked so smug and she said "I knew I was right. It's not fair of you to try to give me a lower price." So I snapped and called the store manager over who, thankfully, overrode the the other manager's desicion.
Never fuck with the people who make your food.
but they're listening to every word I say
Piss in the pancake batter?
By this, I mean abusing food with bodily fluids and waste.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Leave the food in the kitchen for like a half hour after it's been finished cooking.
trust me, there are plenty of things you dont want to happen to your food. And it does happen if you make them angry.
but they're listening to every word I say
There was a lady who was going on about how one of our competitors offered a better deal on a laptop we where also selling. It was a cheap laptop, and the sale would have pocketed me about $6.
"I'm sorry, I can't be bothered ..." I trail off, realising what I just said to a typical fat bitch soccer mum. Then i grin because i know something crazy is gonna go down.
"YOU CANT BE BOTHERED? WHY ARE YOU SMILING SUNSHINE?" She stops, waiting for my reply.
I laugh a bit. Her face goes red. The shouting as attracted attention of some other customers, Including my manager who comes over, pats me on the shoulder and says to her.
"I think what Noobert MEANT to say was that we do not price match. But thank you for taking the time to visit our shop and we hope you keep us in mind if your new laptop will ever require servicing. Have an amazing afternoon"
He keeps hold of my shoulder and takes me around the back, where he bursts into laughter.
I miss that manager.
Sorry.
A large computer/laptop shop in Australia. We mainly deal with businesses, but we also get a large number of general consumers through on Saturday.
I think it's mainly that I work in Australia tho.
So's the customer.
Very few people live in Mayberry.
This is also true, as proven by Circuit City last year.
I worked in a deli in high school. Saw the cook spit in a guys grilled cheese one night because they came in right at closing time and he had already cleaned the grill. Out of the probably 3 or 4 years I worked in restaurants, that was the only time I've seen a cook or server do anything to a persons food, though.
Some can be but eventually if the ideology didn't persist businesses would face the possibility of alienating themselves from the $ that sustains them. Let's face it most people are assholes so it's best to keep them in mind when they are a source of income.
Think about it. How much money will that one customer give to the company over the course of their shopping career? It's like giving the first hit of coke for free. After that they're going to repay your loss tenfold. Really it's a smart business practice and yeah the employees get dicked over but they'd enslave you and open the store for 24 hours if it was legal.
To a degree. I've found that the best hope for survival is to know how to do at least a little of just about anything. I can function on a register, train, work the office, do transfers, handle customers, work on the computers, process, merchandise handle, and know where just about everything is in the store as well as what we carry. And when I put effort into it I can get things done.
The upside: I'm more likely to get away with customer issues than other employees because the managers tend to have a lot of respect for me and I don't normally do things to make customers mad; when I have done them I've not gotten complaints or they've not been major ones. If I was to do something incredibly outrageous I'd be as expendable as hell but I've not crossed that line.
But overall the managers know that if I was to be treated badly by them in regard to a customer service issue where the customer -was- wrong I would leave and they would be pretty screwed over since we're shortstaffed throughout the store and they use me to fill the gaps.
The downside: you can get taken advantage of a lot by managers because you can function in any department or area.
hey, I never said I did that. But there are generally some... less than scrupulous people that work in kitchens. Let me put it this way, they dont fire people that regularly show up 20 minutes late and stoned every day. Nobody wants to work in a kitchen. So fuck you back :P.
But aside from bodily fluids, dont be surprised if you have eaten some floor food before. A little floor spice makes everything nice.
This is why i'm very selective about where I eat now, and am always sure to be super nice and tip the server a decent amount.
but they're listening to every word I say
Gotta love extreme capitalism!
but they're listening to every word I say
Also, customers don't necessarily want to buy as much as possible. Retail outlets do neccessarily want to sell as much as possible. The customer is in a natural state of superiority.
I guess that might hold true for some higher level retail. But places like target can hire anyone off the street and slap them in the job and they will be good to go in about a week. Also higher turnover keeps wages low by no one ever getting raises.
but they're listening to every word I say
It's one thing for a customer to be disrespectful and rude, you only have to deal with each one once. But the people you work with and for? fuck that!
"We will shit on our employees to please you, the customer!"