When to FIRE a Customer

"The customer is always right". Really??

The above phrase is supported by Mahtma Gandhi's quote “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.”

Think back to the times when you have been a customer and when you have clung to the above statements and demanded for service. However, sometimes as customers we do go overboard and instead insult the very status of customer and end up being a nuisance, hence the need to be FIRED!

Most businesses placate the customers so much that the customers end up with outrageous demands and businesses compromise relationships with their employees..

Think hard at this, if a business sides with an angry, unreasonable, straight out of mars client instead of its employee, where does that leave the employee?

Case in point:

One woman who frequently 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 flight 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 first-class section; she didn’t like not having a meal in flight; she didn’t like Southwest’s boarding procedure; she didn’t like the flight attendants’ sporty uniforms and the casual atmosphere.

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

In sixty seconds, Kelleher wrote back and said, ‘Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you. Love, Herb.’”

 Do I hear clap, clap, clap?

For businesses to put unreasonable customers first instead of their employees, it amounts to pure betrayal.

The customer is always right is wrong: simply because

• Customers can decide to demand anything, I mean, they are right?
• Rude customers get better service
• Employees feel undervalued, resulting in WORSE customer service - A customer one day came in shouting at a local bank and was being plain unreasonable, even going as far as abusing the employees and calling them incompetent/idiots. No amount of effort could calm her down and she became irrational. The branch manager intervened and told the customer "I am sorry we cannot assist you, and you are being abusive to the staff here which is simply unacceptable. If you cannot sit down and have a decent conversation, you can proceed and close your account". If the manager had not intervened, the employees would have been demoralized and treated even the slightest irrational customer as an evil fireball

Of course, this does not mean that employees can get away with crap customer service. It simply means some customers are just plain wrong, that businesses are better off without them, and that managers siding with unreasonable customers over employees is a very bad idea, that results in worse customer service.
So put your people first. And watch them put the customers first.