The Customer Is Not Always Right

THE phrase “The Customer Is Always Right’’ is said to have been originally coined by an American-born British retail magnate named Harry Gordon Selfridge. Selfridge was the founder of Selfridges, a London based department store in 1909. 
 

Apparently, this term was meant to convince customers that they will get good service at this company and to also convince employees to give customers good service. 

Zambia has a history of bad customer service. I have seen shop owners and companies, big and small that treat their customers like they were doing them a favour. Now, that’s quite a different subject for another day.

Today, I want to talk about why a company that religiously operates under the maxim ‘The Customer Is Always Right’ is bound to fail.

First, we need to understand that the late 1800s and early 1900s were certainly a different society than the one we live in today. The maxim “The Customer Is Always Right’’ was coined at a time when people treating each other with respect was a rule, not the exception. It was coined at time when people had a moral compass and believed in God. Folks back then lived by the golden rule and life was far much simpler.

This maxim may have worked in the 19^th and 20^th centuries before most folks became so rude, narcissistic and self-entitled. 

Last December while I was in South African I visited a local book store where I witnessed a lady throw a very large hardcover book at the head of the bookstore’s employee who ducked in time for her to miss him.

Apparently, the lady was upset with that particular employee because her daughter had bought her the book as a Christmas gift from the bargain bin which she was returning. The lady refused to accept that her daughter was “so cheap” to have bought the book from the bargain bin and accused the employee of turning her daughter into a cheapskate. 

While the employee tried to calmly explain to the lady that it was the only book about The Beatles the store had which her daughter thought her mom didn’t already have, the lady wouldn’t hear any of it.

Though the incident happened at the time when I was about to leave that store, I lingered on and pretended to be looking at some books when in truth I only wanted to see the end result of that scene.

When the store manager came to the scene I expected him to listen to both sides of the story. But alas, he only listened to the lady. And after telling her side of the story he apologized to the lady and offered her discount on any book she wished to buy. 

Here was a person who was clearly at fault and was so rude she never cared she was making other customers uncomfortable being placated by the store manager and giving her a discount coupled with a gift voucher. 

It may seem like a nice thing to do, but all the store manager was doing was reinforcing that negative behaviour from the lady. I’m sure that lady left with the idea that she could get away with just about anything in that bookstore.

I immediately left the store shaking my head while wondering why the company chose to side with a petulant, unreasonable, angry, self-entitled, demanding customer instead of its loyal employee.

Any adult who throw temper tantrums in public is never right about anything, even if she/he is a loyal customer. Rudeness is an immediate indicator that you are wrong and will stay wrong until you grow some manners.

Regardless of the service, good or bad, there is no justification for such vile behaviour. Just because someone is a customer at any business doesn’t give them free reign to treat people like scum on the bottom of their shoes. The term ‘the customer is always right’ does not mean the customer can treat employees however they want.

A company that operates under the maxim ‘the customer is always right’ only give its abrasive and egoistical customers an unfair advantage and make its employees unhappy. In the end this results in worse customer service as employees feel undervalued and demotivated.

It is now a common practice in business that sometimes you need to fire a customer. Some customers are just not worth keeping. 

There is a pub on the Copperbelt that I used to frequent that had a sign that said, ‘The Customer Is Always Right, The Bartender Will Inform You When.’

A friend of mine who works for some restaurant in Lusaka has a manager that always say: ‘The customer is always right until they are wrong, and they need to get kicked out of the restaurant immediately.’

I remember one incident at the same restaurant when one unruly client caused a scene over a trivial misunderstanding. The manager walked to the gentleman and told him that his staff was not to be abused by him and his bad attitude. I remember the manager saying to the unruly customer, ‘you are not even good enough to be our clientele so leave and don’t come back.’ He got up and left.

No one deserves to be berated with the sad excuse of ‘I had a bad day.’ It is customer service not customer servant. 

I have made it a personal rule never to be rude or demanding to people working in retail of any kind. They are just trying to do their job. If I have a problem then I find a way to resolve it in an adult way. If I don’t like the service I don’t return, and they lose my business. It’s as simple as that.

If I can’t conduct myself in a mature manner then why should I be treated in the same way? You get what you give. If you are always getting bad customer service probably it’s because you are a bad customer yourself.

Until everyone can be civilized and treat each other with utmost respect, we certainly cannot renew the idea that the customer is always right. Some customers are so obnoxious that I would rather not even have their business if I were a business owner.