The phrase the “customer is always right” was originally coined in 1909 by Harry Gordon Selfridge, The founder of Selfridge’s department store in London, and is typically used by businesses to convince customers that they will get good service at their company and convince employees to give customers good services.
As an entrepreneur, you should know that not all customers are good for business, and to avoid trouble you should let the wrong customers go instead of telling your employees that customers are always right.
Some customers make employees very unhappy which is really wrong and this tend to cause conflicts between employees and customer which is really bad for business.
Of course there are plenty of examples of bad employees giving lousy customer service but trying to solve this by declaring the customer is always right is counter-productive.
Using the slogan the ‘customer is always right’, abusive customers can demand just about anything – they are right by that definition, aren’t they? This makes the employees jobs much harder when trying to retain them in. This always seemed wrong to me, and it makes much sense to be nice to the nice customers, so as to keep them coming back.
Like I said earlier some customers are bad for business. Most businesses think that the more the customers, the better. But some customers are quite simply bad for business.
You have to learn to put your employees first and your customers second cause there is no way your employee will be rude to a customer if the customer did not deserve it and you should know that without your employees your business is likely to fail, that’s why you need to have a good relationship with your employees and they will be loyal to you and help your business grow.
Also note that employees who are happy at work tend to give better services because they care more about other people including customers and willing to put their best into keeping the customers satisfied and they get motivated and always happy to come to work, maybe cause of a particular customer.
But when the company and managements consistently side with customers instead of employees, it sends a clear message like you don’t value or appreciate your employees, treating employees fairly is not important and making them think they have no right to respect from customers makes coming to work difficult, even when they are at work they are eager to leave or start looking for other jobs which can ruin your business.
When this attitude prevails, employees stop caring about service. At that point, genuinely good service is almost impossible- the best customers can hope for at this instance is a fake good service.
[…] Abbey opined there are times the customers are not right. In other words, either the customer or you are not always right. At times team members who could not see beyond their nose see your tenacity of purpose as hardness and arrogance. But once you’re sure of your direction, keep up your stand. […]