Diary of a Customer Service Manager

CUSTOMER IS NOT ALWAYS RIGHT!

Deary diary,

I had a piece of paper flung in my face today at work. It was horrible! There was this customer that walked in with an aggressive air about her. She proceeded to make her request and in my usual fashion, I tried to make small talk whilst I attended to her. As I spoke, her only response was to give me a blank look. Sensing that my small talk was not welcomed, I quickly serviced her request and handed it over to her. She snatched the paper out of my hand, looked at it briefly and then boom! The next thing I felt was the harsh sting of crisp white paper on my face. She then began to shout saying, “is that what I asked you to do? You better have it corrected in one hour or else…” and with that, she stormed out.

Diary, at that moment, I felt many things… retaliation, shock, anger, embarrassment, the list was endless. The other customer in the room picked up the paper she had flung in my face, looked at it and declared ‘this is exactly what she said she wanted when she came in. what was that woman’s problem sef!’ There you have it! I was vindicated. At least I had a witness. Earlier on, I heard her yelling angrily over the phone to someone before she walked into my office so I was sure that on my part, I had done nothing wrong. I quietly excused myself from the other customers present so that I could pull myself together and report the situation to my superiors. Even though they expressed their distaste over her actions and emphasized with me, I knew that that was all I was going to get as far as the matter went. ‘Occupational hazard’ they called it and that was the end of it.

Needless to repeat, I had a horrible rest of the day! Hopefully, tomorrow would be a better one.

CUSTOMER IS NOT ALWAYS RIGHT!

Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge’s department store in London in 1909 coined the phrase “Customer is always right” and since then it has been used by businesses to convince customers that they will receive good service at a particular company and also convince employees to give customers good service.

During an interview at the Global Leadership Summit in 2018, Danny Meyer expressed that “The customer is not always right. While the customer is not always right, he/she must always feel heard.” It is based on the ‘customer is always right’ premise that the service industry has its foundations rooted. Many customer service managers have received one form of customer service training or the other based on this particular premise too. It is totally wrong. Now here’s why:

1. Some customers are bad for business. The mentality of ‘the more customers, the better’ is not ideal. Not every customer is a suitable fit for a business.
2. It gives harsh, aggressive and arrogant customers the upper hand. Every business needs to have a policy that protects its employees from these kinds of customers. In the words of Richard Branson, “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients”.
3. Some customers are just not right. It’s that simple.
4. It can create an aura of employee dissatisfaction within an organization which in turn leads to i. more bad customer service. ii. dwindling motivation from employees iii. disloyal employees iv. complacent employees

However, having established that there are ‘horrible’ customers, every customer service person must master ‘the art of active listening’. By doing this, a major part of the customer’s issues or request would be understood and as the scenario permits, satisfied.