I like this article: The customer is NOT always right.

CornyKegs 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
kornkob

kornkob

Resident Crazy Uncle
Joined
Oct 3, 2005
Messages
1,856
Reaction score
37
Location
Madison WI
http://www.violentacres.com/archives/59/two-phrases-that-destroyed-american-culture?1

Snip/

The phrase ‘The Customer is Always Right’ is the single worst philosophy that has ever been adopted by American culture. It gave an entire generation of people the green light to be as impolite, unreasonable, and demanding as their little hearts desired because they were always going to be considered right. ......... Furthermore, instead of suffering negative repercussions for their appallingly disrespectful behavior, they are awarded with free coupons and plenty of ass kissing. In reality, they should be shunned and humiliated for behaving like such self absorbed little children.
 
Funny, Angry, Insightful woman.

I gotta wonder about this though...
About me

I'm a married woman in my early 30's with so much sand in my vag*na that I give myself burns walking across my living room floor. But hey! It sure beats being you.
Click to expand...
 
Good article - I agree completely. I especially liked the part about giving default level of respect that can then change according to behavior.
 
Reminds me of a chick I was behind in line once. It was at a diner that had set up shop in the building I worked in. She had ordered some sandwich then attempted to get them to substitute almost every item on the thing. At the same time quizzing them about the origins of all the ingredients. Wondering if they were organic this and free range that, and so on. While doing all this, she was bragging how she never ordered anything off the menu the way it appeared, as she liked to "customize" everything.

The kicker was at the end of the order and when they basically had the sandwich made, she asked if they had put mustard on it. He said they only had it in the little single service packets but he would include some with the order. She had the nerve to ask him to open them for her so she wouldn't get any on her clothes...

Her tone of voice the whole time was super "nice" but horrifyingly condescending... I almost had to smack the sh*t out of her just listening to it.
 
I saw some writing on this awhile back and I must agree. You have two parties involved in a voluntary transaction. You want my currency, I want your goods/services. There's nothing inherent in that situation that affords either of us any special status. But if there's more or less competition on either side of the transaction, then the balance shifts and it's natural for the disadvantaged side to give the other one special treatment. This is not to say that either side gets to do whatever they want, but it does mean that the natural order of things means that there's some giving and taking to be done depending on the factors surrounding the transaction. For example, let's say I drive into a little town and there are 6 different sushi restaurants competing for my dollars, and business has been slow overall. It's natural that, while I'm not "always right", those places would probably go out of their way to cater to me, and would put up with a lot more crap than they would otherwise. On the flip side, if I rolled into that same town and there was one sushi restaurant and there was a line out the door, the roles would be reversed---they wouldn't take nearly as much of my crap, and they wouldn't be going as far out of their way to cater to me.

It's a function of the situation surrounding the transaction...and I think that the whole "the customer is always right" thing grew out of the management classes' ability to delegate putting up with crap to those lower on the totem pole...and it started to drift away from being a function of the market conditions.
 
Agreed....bad philosophy! How about this one instead;

"The customer deserves your utmost respect until they prove themselves unworthy of it."

I guess that would work with just about anyone. I generally treat people like I would treat my mom or dad...until they reveal themselves to be an arrogant prick, selfish *****, etc. At that point, I pull no punches.
 
I'm sure most of us have been in some sort of job where customers are involved. I find most people are pretty respectful even when mistakes are made. As a general rules it is not a good idea to be an ass to people who handle your food, especially before you get your food.

I have to deal with being disrespected, but I draw the line when i am being cussed at or threatened. Now I may sling beer and wings for a living right now, but behind my bar I AM GOD. I have no problem cutting someone off if they are rude to me, even if they have only had two beers. When they ask for a manager I simply tell them it won't do any good, please pay your tab and GTFO!

I wish more people would call out others for being rude and unreasonable, becuase like the article says, they act that way becuase they are allowed to.
 
Evan! said:
It's a function of the situation surrounding the transaction...and I think that the whole "the customer is always right" thing grew out of the management classes' ability to delegate putting up with crap to those lower on the totem pole...and it started to drift away from being a function of the market conditions.
Click to expand...

Personally I think you are making it way too complicated.

I think the reason that 'The customer is always right' as a training concept took off is really more simple than that:

The management of most restaurants do not respect or value their employees and regard it as much easier to teach them to kowtow to customers at all costs than it is to train and develop good, well rounded employees who are mindful custodians of the business' reputation.

In short: it is a cheap, short sighted solution to a complicated problem.
 
The customer is Almost always right, except for those who behave like assclowns. The problem is customers who wield an unusual amount of purchasing power and they abuse the people from whom they purchase things. These assclowns know the poor people have to take their crap if they want continued business.

Sometimes, folks with testicular fortitude figure out such abuse is not worth it and they tell these folks to go pound sand as their business is not worth the hassle.
 
+1 on this Twohead, "The customer deserves your utmost respect until they prove themselves unworthy of it."

Life is not easy, Lets not sugar coat it. I think we have all been on both sides of the counter before in our lives.
 
I do not believe everone deserves a basic level of respect,...have you seen Cops, or some of these reality shows?:D

To me, respect requires knowing someone, and having some admiration for at least one of their personal quilities. However, you can be polite without respecting someone. I find that my day is a lot more enjoyable, and stress free when I am friendly and polite to people. That's why I act that way.
 
Sea said:
I do not believe everone deserves a basic level of respect,...have you seen Cops, or some of these reality shows?:D

To me, respect requires knowing someone, and having some admiration for at least one of their personal quilities. However, you can be polite without respecting someone. I find that my day is a lot more enjoyable, and stress free when I am friendly and polite to people. That's why I act that way.
Click to expand...

Part of the difficulty here is semantics.

Being respectful and 'being polite' have come to be used interchangeably, whether we like it or not.

The message remains the same: allowing society to be overly pedantic about making everyone 'earn' respect has aided in creating a more generally disrespectful world, where the default is lack of respect.
 
I am an ICU nurse, I see people die unfortunately. But the bizarre thing is that I have seen people blow up and become more animated and distraught over a wrong fast food order when I was a teenager than I have ever seen over a dying or deceased family member. It is disturbing to say the least.
 
I used to own my own bakery/coffee shop and one of my employee's husband was in during morning rush and said "Hey Women, get me some coffee". I came around the corner and said " She may be your wife, but right now she is my employee and I will not let anyone speak to my employee like that. Either apologize or leave."
I got more compliments about that than probably anything else I did while there
 
OK, now you have hit a nerve.:mad:

Up until 6 months ago I was the manager of a major Apple reseller in Australia. My store did over 6 million dollars a year in sales and specialised in corporate and government clients. We were also an "Apple Authorised Service Agent" the only one in a town of around 350,000 people.

So here's my typical day.. Sitting at my desk (off the showroom floor) contacting supplier sn distributors of products I may, ot do carry in my store, and working out quotes for $100,000 plus instllations of SAN's and networks.


My capable, competent staff are manning the sales floor, answering questions and selling up a storm.

I continue to work up my leader board, look at sales projections, order stock, chase bad debtors, answer the phone, chase service issues etc.. suddenly, I hear a LOUD disgruntled "Customer" saying : This is my SECOND iPod that had died and I am NOT happy!!"

So I drop everything, walk out into the showroom and I am confronted with a pissed off customer, who bought his iPod 14 months ago from one of my competitors. He is abusing my staff member because he has to wait 7 days to get his free replacement on an ipof that is OUT OF WARRANTY.. keep in mind that he didn't but it from us..

I say "Excuse me sir, I am the manager, how can I help?" After he stops rolling his eyes and looking at me like I am the lowest form of scum on the planet, he exclaims "This thing is a piece of SHlT! My Daughter NEEDS this replaced by the weekend because we are going on vacation!!"

Me: I'm sorry sir, but our technicians need to evaluate the piece of equipment to ascertain if it is defective and replace it under warranty if possible.

Customer: That's not good enough! I want it replaced now, or I want my money back!

Me: I'm sorry sir, but our techs need to inspect your ipod and determine if it can be replaced under warranty.

Customer: That's not good enough! I want my money back!

Me: I'm sorry sir, but you didn't buy your ipod here.. I don't have your money, so i can't give it back to you. Also, you Ipod is more than a year old, which would normally make it out of warranty, but since you have had an ongoing problem, I am sure we can get it replaced for you, but it will take 3-4 days to evaluate your ipod and arange a repplacement.

Customer: I am goin gto contact my lawyer! I am going to contact the press! I am going to contact the better business bureau!!!

Me: I'm sorry you feel that way sir.. here is the phone number for the better business bureau, ask for Ben, he is the local contact.


I go back to my $100,000+ quote.

Customers are RARELY right.. that's why they need help when they show up.

I got out of retail 6 months ago because cutomers are ASSH0LES!!

I reckon EVERY SINGLE CONSUMER IN THE WORLD should have to work retail for a minimum of 6 months, just so they can see how bad it feels to be treated like **** by a customer. They would treat sales staff a LOT differently if they understood I reckon.

I got so pissed off at a "Customer" one day when she was ABUSING one of my staff members, that I said "Excuse me ma'am, I know you are upset, but do you recall what you just said and the tone you just said it in, when you were YELLING at my staff member?" "YES!!! she said I am a busy woman, and this girl is HOPELESS!!!" I said " and how would you feel if you walked into the store where YOUR daughter works and heard someone speaking to her like you just spoke to my staff member?" She looked at me like I had just slapped her and said "Your staff member is INCOMPETENT and cannot help me at ALL!!" I replied with " I bet her mother would disagree with you if she heard the way you just spoke to her"

Stupid COW stomped out of the store yelling obscenities all the way. Wish I could have given her the KICK IN THE ASS she so desperately deserved.
 
PeteOz77 said:
OK, now you have hit a nerve.:mad:

Up until 6 months ago I was the manager of a major Apple reseller in Australia. My store did over 6 million dollars a year in sales and specialised in corporate and government clients. We were also an "Apple Authorised Service Agent" the only one in a town of around 350,000 people.

So here's my typical day.. Sitting at my desk (off the showroom floor) contacting supplier sn distributors of products I may, ot do carry in my store, and working out quotes for $100,000 plus instllations of SAN's and networks.


My capable, competent staff are manning the sales floor, answering questions and selling up a storm.

I continue to work up my leader board, look at sales projections, order stock, chase bad debtors, answer the phone, chase service issues etc.. suddenly, I hear a LOUD disgruntled "Customer" saying : This is my SECOND iPod that had died and I am NOT happy!!"

So I drop everything, walk out into the showroom and I am confronted with a pissed off customer, who bought his iPod 14 months ago from one of my competitors. He is abusing my staff member because he has to wait 7 days to get his free replacement on an ipof that is OUT OF WARRANTY.. keep in mind that he didn't but it from us..

I say "Excuse me sir, I am the manager, how can I help?" After he stops rolling his eyes and looking at me like I am the lowest form of scum on the planet, he exclaims "This thing is a piece of SHlT! My Daughter NEEDS this replaced by the weekend because we are going on vacation!!"

Me: I'm sorry sir, but our technicians need to evaluate the piece of equipment to ascertain if it is defective and replace it under warranty if possible.

Customer: That's not good enough! I want it replaced now, or I want my money back!

Me: I'm sorry sir, but our techs need to inspect your ipod and determine if it can be replaced under warranty.

Customer: That's not good enough! I want my money back!

Me: I'm sorry sir, but you didn't buy your ipod here.. I don't have your money, so i can't give it back to you. Also, you Ipod is more than a year old, which would normally make it out of warranty, but since you have had an ongoing problem, I am sure we can get it replaced for you, but it will take 3-4 days to evaluate your ipod and arange a repplacement.

Customer: I am goin gto contact my lawyer! I am going to contact the press! I am going to contact the better business bureau!!!

Me: I'm sorry you feel that way sir.. here is the phone number for the better business bureau, ask for Ben, he is the local contact.


I go back to my $100,000+ quote.

Customers are RARELY right.. that's why they need help when they show up.

I got out of retail 6 months ago because cutomers are ASSH0LES!!

I reckon EVERY SINGLE CONSUMER IN THE WORLD should have to work retail for a minimum of 6 months, just so they can see how bad it feels to be treated like **** by a customer. They would treat sales staff a LOT differently if they understood I reckon.

I got so pissed off at a "Customer" one day when she was ABUSING one of my staff members, that I said "Excuse me ma'am, I know you are upset, but do you recall what you just said and the tone you just said it in, when you were YELLING at my staff member?" "YES!!! she said I am a busy woman, and this girl is HOPELESS!!!" I said " and how would you feel if you walked into the store where YOUR daughter works and heard someone speaking to her like you just spoke to my staff member?" She looked at me like I had just slapped her and said "Your staff member is INCOMPETENT and cannot help me at ALL!!" I replied with " I bet her mother would disagree with you if she heard the way you just spoke to her"

Stupid COW stomped out of the store yelling obscenities all the way. Wish I could have given her the KICK IN THE ASS she so desperately deserved.
Click to expand...

[trying to think of a way to disagree] Hm, yeah, that sounds about right. I worked in retail selling wine for a few years, and there were those days when Randall's words kept coming back to me. What this "customer is always right" horsesh*t has spawned is a culture of perceived entitlement. For some odd reason, some people seem to think that the money in their pocket is the last bit of currency on the planet, and that retailers will do anything (and put up with anything) just to get those two twenty dollar bills. Wrongo dongo, *********. You're just one more mufuh'r in a long line of mufuh'rs who, you know, have money they want to spend.

YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO RENT HERE ANYMORE!
 
On the other hand, retail workers who earnestly believe things like " Customers are RARELY right.. that's why they need help when they show up." probably need to be very careful that this attitude doesn't leak out into their interactions with the many customers who show up and never leave an impression on the retail worker because they were 'right'. They came in, benignly engaged the retailer and left. This probably describes a vast majority of retailer interactions.

When someone says that describes the minority of interactions, I have to question whether the retailer is treating people respectfully. If you start out every interaction assuming that the customer you are dealing with is an unreasonable person undeserving of your respect, it does leak out in your tone of voice, choice of words or general demeanor.

The best service people are those who can deal with the worst customer ever one minute and start fresh with a new customer the next because they are able to view each person as a separate entity. When 'customers' are generalized into negative stereotypes by retail workers, their attitude impacts their interactions.
 
For some reason it's blocked at work, but actsofgord.com was my idol many years ago when I worked with The Public.
 
I'm going to remember this thread is here and link to it the next time somebody starts ranting about their crappy LHBS or throws a tantrum because their online order arrived a day later than expected.
 
EdWort said:
The customer is Almost always right, except for those who behave like assclowns. The problem is customers who wield an unusual amount of purchasing power and they abuse the people from whom they purchase things. These assclowns know the poor people have to take their crap if they want continued business.

Sometimes, folks with testicular fortitude figure out such abuse is not worth it and they tell these folks to go pound sand as their business is not worth the hassle.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, people thing that purchasing power make any behavior ok. I had my share of pompous photographers when I ran a camera store.

The real expensive cameras we only made 1 1/2% margin and the rich photographers would want a major deal because they are spending $10,000.

The point and shoots we could make 40% margin and no one would ask for a deal. Guess who we would rather sell cameras to?

Our most popular camera at the time (The Canon Rebel - piece of plastic crap) sold for $399.99 and we made $4.00 profit. Then people would come in and want to spend 1/2 hour explaining the camera to them, only so they could go to Walmart and buy it for $396.99.

I had one customer that wanted to buy an $800 camera outfit and he wanted to spend an hour and he wanted a major discount. This camera outfit was on sale and we were only making 2%. I told him that the price on the outfit is a great price and if he had been price shopping he would know this is a great price. He didn't want to hear that, so I told him that I would be fair and let him tell me what margin would be fair to charge him for the outfit.
He thought a minute and told me that 25% would be a fair margin.

I walked up to the counter with a straight face and rang his camera up at 25% margin. "Hey, that is more than the shelf price!"
I said ok what margin would be fair, I am willing to work with you.

He went down to 10% and when he saw that it was still more expensive by quite a bit, he left without a word.

Hopefully it was a life lesson for him.

Forrest
 
kornkob said:
The best service people are those who can deal with the worst customer ever one minute and start fresh with a new customer the next because they are able to view each person as a separate entity. When 'customers' are generalized into negative stereotypes by retail workers, their attitude impacts their interactions.
Click to expand...

Yep. When people start off with the attitude of "Oh great, a f'ing customer" when one walks in the door, those guys need to start looking for another line of work.
 
My business partner used to run a Audio store. A complaining customer (trying to get a free out-of-warranty repair) demanded to talk to the manager. She said, "You won't like this, but I am the manager." So, he demanded to speak to the owner. "You really won't like this. The owner is my husband."
 
EdWort said:
Yep. When people start off with the attitude of "Oh great, a f'ing customer" when one walks in the door, those guys need to start looking for another line of work.
Click to expand...

Also, when retail workers get upset at customers that don't follow their carefully scripted customer handling process, they've ceased to think of their customers as people and started down a very bad road.

I really dislike that Visa commercial that portrays the cash paying customer as some sort of horrible person who is 'holding things up' and causing all kinds of disruptions to a business simply because they aren't paying with plastic.

Customers who need special attention or have specific needs or questions are the very reason that people in retail have jobs. The only real reason that there is any need for retail workers is that machines are less flexible and less interactive than humans. Expecting customers to act like mechanical automatons is no less disrespectful than expecting your service workers to be mechanical automatons.
 
PeteOz77 said:
OK, now you have hit a nerve.:mad:

Up until 6 months ago I was the manager of a major Apple reseller in Australia. My store did over 6 million dollars a year in sales and specialised in corporate and government clients. We were also an "Apple Authorised Service Agent" the only one in a town of around 350,000 people.
Click to expand...

Hah, I worked for Apple for a few years and most of their customers were like that at the time. Most of our calls were for people that were out of warranty and demanding we fix whatever their problem was for free. Most of the time their reasoning was that they were the sole reason their kids school bought Apple computers or something similar.

The most abusive customers rarely got anything from me, but that special person would get sent a pen or keychain or something. :p
 
I don't know if axxhole customers are the norm, but they have enough impact on things to make a salesperson/service representative leery of all customers. I've had several instances where the person at the counter has apologized to me numerous times for waiting, etc... and they act like I'm going to get mad and snap at them.
 
McKBrew said:
I don't know if axxhole customers are the norm, but they have enough impact on things to make a salesperson/service representative leery of all customers. I've had several instances where the person at the counter has apologized to me numerous times for waiting, etc... and they act like I'm going to get mad and snap at them.
Click to expand...

thats because most people would...and thats a crying shame....
 
:off:Ohh and as for the art of a$$ kissing, I jsut gave my boss my last bottle of IPA. I figure since my hard work in the office hasn't gotten me anywhere, maybe a good homebrew will:D
 
I know it is an anecdote but consider this instance.

I once had an employee who was observed being very rude to a customer, without any real cause.

When I took her aside and talked to her about it she started telling me about how all her customers had been such complete and irrational boobies that day. So I pulled her stats and customer records and we sat down and I had her tell me what each of the people did that was so bad.

We discovered it came down to one irrational person who pushed all her buttons. After that she started taking everything every customer did personally.

Every time I've nailed an employee down (or been painfully honest with myself) this has been the case: a single really bad customer starts the person down a bad road and after that, half the problem is the service person themselves making the situation much worse than it needs to be.

Totally anecdotal, I realize. But to convince me that 'most' customers are 'bad' there'd have to be some pretty dramatic evidence because I firmly believe that most customers are benign and that service people often make things worse after encountering one of those 'bad' customers.
 
kornkob said:
Totally anecdotal, I realize. But to convince me that 'most' customers are 'bad' there'd have to be some pretty dramatic evidence because I firmly believe that most customers are benign and that service people often make things worse after encountering one of those 'bad' customers.
Click to expand...

Absolutely true. If bad customers were the norm, we'd definately see more evidence. It's like going to work in a good mood and one supervisor says/does something to p!ss you off, and then you are so torqued you take it out on the rest of the office.
 
Beerthoven said:
I'm going to remember this thread is here and link to it the next time somebody starts ranting about their crappy LHBS
Click to expand...

Well, I certainly hope you don't post it in my recent thread about being unhappy with my LHBS. The woman I was dealing with (one of the owners as a matter of fact) was being rather rude to me, but the shorter she got with me, the more polite and patient I got (and I started out perfectly polite to begin with - I don't think I have ever given attitude to a retailer). I honestly was just trying to find out why she was so torqued at me at that point. When I finally had had enough, I apologized for troubling her, and that was the end of it.
 
Most people are good and don't wake up wondering who they can p!$$ off today.

I just think of the chronic a$$wipes like cartoon characters...it makes it easier not to stab them in the eye with a pen.
 
Yakima 300

Latest posts

Back
Top