Customers vs. Employees: The Customer Isn’t Always Right

Long ago and far away, I had my first job at a McDonald’s for $1.60 an hour.
I had fun, worked hard, and learned a lot about the workworld, including memorable phrases like “If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean.” And this one:

“The customer is always right.”

Customer service and satisfaction are obviously key in any business.

But “the customer is always right” can sometimes undermine employees when they most need support — when the customer is wrong. So says “happiness at work” guru Alexander Kjerulf.

Kjerulf has a blog post on the top 5 reasons this business maxim is wrong:

It makes employees unhappy. He quotes an airline exec on this point: “When it’s a choice between supporting your employees, who work with you every day and make your product what it is, or some irate jerk who demands a free ticket to Paris because you ran out of peanuts, whose side are you going to be on?”
It gives abrasive customers an unfair advantage.
Some customers are bad for business.
It results in worse customer service. Kjerulf says consistently siding with customers instead of employees sends a clear message that: employees are not valued, treating employees fairly is not important, employees have no right to respect from customers, and employees have to put up with everything from customers.
Some customers are just plain wrong. Read the story he quotes on this one.

Interesting take. My interest, of course is the employee morale angle. Sometimes, management needs to support the employee against the very unreasonable and demanding customer. Not doing so is bad for morale.
But much more often, I think, well-trained employees can find a middle ground: attempting to defuse the customer situation, recognizing that the spirit behind the maxim is true — customer satisfaction is very important — even if it is not literally true.

Source:

The Chief Happiness Officer blog: “Top 5 reasons why ‘The Customer Is Always Right’ is wrong”

Further reading:

Comments (100+) on the featured post. Excellent discussion, for the most part.

Comments on the featured post on Digg. Ditto.

Sound & Video Contractor: “The Customer is Always Right?” Good story: kooky-sounding customer is right; contractor eats crow.

American International Auto Dealers: “The Customer is Always Right?” Explores issue constructively. Interesting statistic supporting the maxim: “Fortune Magazine says that while a satisfied customer will tell 5 people of his experience, 85 percent of dissatisfied customers tell 9 people, while 13 percent tell 20.”

“Top 5 Business Maxims That Need to Go” Kjerulf post on more questionable business maxims, including provocative discussion of each, and suggested reformulations.

Photo credit: dziner via flickr