When The Customer Is Wrong

And how -- thanks for posting this. I worked at a McDonald's when I was in high school and once had a customer go on a tirade during which she asked how I'd ever been hired in the first place and called me "a retard." All because they were fixing the milkshake machine and she would have had to have waited a few extra minutes to get hers.

Meanwhile, my manager joined her in staring me down. I quit the next day. It was the best decision I ever made.

I had a boss 25 or so years ago. I still consider him to be the most customer-oriented person I have ever worked with. One day, he received a phone call from an irate customer. After hearing the complaint through, my boss asked the customer. "Are you happy?" to which he customer replied "No". My boss then replied "Well you better take your business elsewhere, because we don't want any unhappy customers here."

I had one customer who would endlessly promise to never do business with us again and I tried to get him to put it in writing.

The creepy SOB always came back.

One of the most important skills in the construction industry is knowing which jobs should be politely declined.

We do not do it real often but it does happen.

One guy was absolutely aghast.

He said he had never heard of such a thing but I kind of doubted that. /s

Another excellent find, Kate. I recall about 15 years ago reading an article in Forbes that said something similar, along the lines of: most companies would be better off if they got rid of the worst few percent of their customers.

Now, consider this. Why is a blog any different? Seriously, look at the criteria in the article. I think that's something for commenters in web logs to keep in mind. They probably don't want to be in the bottom few percent of the worst customers.

A fellow I know in Edmonton owns and runs a retail shop. On meeting a potential new customer, he always cracks some kind of joke. If he does not get a positive reaction, a chuckle or a smile, he won't do business with them.

Most of your unhappy customers are unhappy long before they met you. It is a permanent state of being for many people.

...oney sale to grumpy customer: $25
...one grumpy return: $25 + lost time and paperwork
...one grumpy shove out the door: priceless.

Great post---yes, I also have dealt with my fair share of people who seem to think they are your only customer in the world. I used to work for an airline and some people were downright nasty. Their demands were unreasonable and just plain stupid. I wanted to scream at them, "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE???!!! " , but instead would force a smile and try to reassure them that "I was doing the best I can" to meet their insane needs.

On the other hand, I have encountered unbelievably poor service lately at some stores in Saskatoon. There are three stores in particular at Midtown Plaza that I no longer shop at due to the service. The last time I was in one of the stores there, I asked to speak to the manager and the girl replied, "I am the manager.". Alrighty, then. Whatta gonna do? The only thing you can do: don't go back--ever.

I am a self-employed professional and I have fired clients who are abusive and disrespectful -the peace of mind is worth much, much more than any fees these rude, inconsiderate jerks could pay me. And the look of utter astonishment on their faces is priceless.

I can appreciate this attitude, having pumped gas all the way through high school and university - self serve was still a radical concept.
On the other hand, my experience as a Canadian consumer tells me most customer sevice people do not need to be told the customer is not always right. I'd said they're already making up their own minds on that idea.

him, saying "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?" to a Canadian customer might not be worth the effort, I remember reading about an international survey of airline staff a few years ago and it found that Canadians were the most likely to have the "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" syndrome.

I find this to be a very interesting thread. Southwest Airlines had a reality show, on Discovery Channel I believe, about the daily runnings of an airline. Just watching the meriad of ignorant a$$holes that paraded up to the counter was amazing. The check-in crew were supposed to be psychic and know that you are in the bar so as to not give away your seat when you do not answer final boarding call. They are all personally responsible for weather and machine delays and can conjur up a plane to go to your destination at a moments notice. I think of those poor patient souls everytime I get delayed at an airport and am tempted to vent.

On another aspect of this thread I have noticed that "generally" the service and attitude I have received from those in the service industry seems a lot better in Texas than in most of Canada. In four + years down here I can count on one hand the times I have not been pleased with the service. This may not be indicitive of all of the US but here at least I get greeted by someone at virtually every store I enter. That is a personal observation which will probably be disputed by some.

One of the things that I think a lot of people miss is that, whether one is a customer or a vendor, business transactions are a two-way street.

For example, I jentaculate almost every morning a local deli. They, effectively spoil me. They do things for me, and let me get away with things, that they let few customers get away with.

Why? Because they can see that I value the relationship and behave appropriate to that. They can see that I try to be gracious (please and thank you are a good start), and even entertaining (getting people to laugh is a good start), and I tip well: 20 to 30% usually (I'm interacting with wait-staff here, not salaried employees).

I see bad customers at the deli all the time (and of course, in those conditions, I go out of my way to express support for the staff - but not to take on the customer myself, that would be disrespectful of their authority). Those customers don't realize it's a two-way street.

And I've seen a few bad wait-staff over the years. Always it has been the case that they think the job is about them, not about the customer. They don't realize that it's a two-way street.

You folks might be very interested in a web log called Waiter Rant - waiterrant.net - which is written by a chap who spent some years in a seminary, then got a bachelors in psych, worked in an asylum for a while, and then in big commerce, and is now a waiter and writer. His insights and style are hightly recommended (I once spent three days there reading his last two years work).

Went to Wash state to get married. The service in the hotels and restraunts from Blaine to Port Angeles was SUPER. First night back in my own country and service at the hotel in Victoria was less than stellar. It seems that I was an inconvinience not a customer. I find the service in most US establishment far far above the dont bother me Im doing my nails kind of response I get in most places in BC. I wonder if it has anything to do with the union mindset????

I have visited the waiterrant site too. I was going to mention it, but you beat me to it.

I remember a story about a salesperson in a store who had an answer for a belligerent customer which made a good preemptive shot at the "customer is always right". He said, "The customer is always right, and you are wrong, so you can't be my customer."

Here's another, perhaps humerous, take on the matter. In my line of work, our software exists to perform and check engineer's calculations and design decisions, so when our software says the customer is wrong, they tend to say, right your are, thanks for helping with that.

Those of you who haven't checked Protein Wisdom's latest entries and comments may have missed the further descent into insanity that is the Doctor Deb train wreck. It just keeps getting worse.

Re: Waiter rants, I read a book written by a waiter friend of ours with a title like "Waiters are from Venus, Customers are from Hell" or something like that. In this book he describes real events that he has been part of and trust me, it certainly pays to have a sense of humour to work in that industry. i.e. changing a diaper on the table and expecting the waiter to dispose of it comes to mind. I do not have access to the book title and author but I'll post it when I get a chance. If you recognize yourself in there then please seek professional help.

My service industry experiences are basically pumping gas and slinging beer. In the latter case most idiots can be written off as effects of the booze. Oh yes, and a very brief stint at a ladies shoe store where math such as size 10 foot does not go into size 6 shoe doesn't matter if the customer is right. I decided to move on fast.

Vis a vis customer service in Canada and the U.S.: Hands down, service in the U.S. is better.

My family and I spent a day in the States this weekend and everywhere we went, we got friendly and prompt service: well almost everywhere. When our breakfast order in the hotel dining room "was lost," our waitress apologized and the maitre d' immediately chopped our bill by 50%.

When I got a sandwich I hadn't ordered at Cracker Barrel back in March, the manager personally came to our table, apologized, and said there would be no charge. I don't think I've ever been compensated in this way in a Canadian restaurant when there's been a problem. When you're asked by the waitress, "Is everything all right?" and you actually answer that there's a problem, they usually look at you as though you've got ten heads. The pro-forma Canadian answer is always supposed to be, "Yes, everything's fine," even when it's not.

On the other hand, I've had lots of jobs in the service industry over the years, as a waitress in a hotel in London, England, and as a salesperson in a cigar store and a couple of large department stores. I've always tried to treat my customers the way I'd like to be treated: politely and taking an interest in their needs. I never, however, took rudeness and ignorance sitting down (well, I was pretty much on my feet the whole time).

Years ago, when a radio personality in Toronto, about fifth in line as he waited for cigarettes and me the only salesperson, snapped, "Girl, I'm in a hurry," I witheringly looked at him and in a voice as cold as ice said, "There are four people in front of you and as soon as I have served them, I'd be happy to serve you."

I've always found that when you stare down a bully, they usually back off. Said radio personality looked distinctly chastened and embarrassed and meekly accepted his place in line. He never spoke to me like that again--and I always made sure that I was pleasant to him whenever he came into the store to buy his cigarettes.

I have a brother who works for Air Canada. He considers himself to be quite funny. On one flight, he told another flight steward that the gentleman in seat 11c needed toothpicks. The steward approached the man and said "here's your toothpick sir" The old chap looked up and to the surprise of the steward, he had absolutely none.
My brother was on the back of the flight, laughing his ass off while the poor steward retreated from a pissed off client yelling, "what, you think you're puckin punny"
True story!

I'm going to copy this fine and fun article and nail it to the door of the big city public school board for which I work.

This board's a gulag. Teachers are treated like serfs because the customers--especially those big (parents) and small (students) and the worst behaved--are nearly always appeased and so get away with the most egregious behaviour. The teachers often feel like you know what.

Thanks. This was fun--and gratifying--to read!

Great find, Kate. Thanks for posting this. It is so true. I run into the odd customer that demands I sell--eg, my $30 priced-item to them for $20. Since my cost of this item is about $18 or $19, I have no use for customers like these. I am not interested in stocking--and carrying items and then selling them for virtually no profit.

If it is dead stock, then I will "blow it out the door", otherwise NO.

However these unreasonable customers are welcome to go and hassle my competitors. :))

Texas Canuck wrote:

"On another aspect of this thread I have noticed that "generally" the service and attitude I have received from those in the service industry seems a lot better in Texas than in most of Canada."

I am not surprised that you have noticed this. One of my suppliers is from Texas (Hensley Industries) and these people don't mess around. I can fax them a diagram with a question and they usually reply within 15 minutes--sometimes within 2 minutes. It makes me look very good when I can get back to my customer within minutes. None of my Canadian suppliers--with the possible exception of Western Canadian Screens--can hold a candle to my Canadian suppliers.

Indeed, I have 3 suppliers from the US and unless I just lucked out with these 3 suppliers, they provide much better service than my Canadian suppliers.

Sad--if you are a Canadian--but true.

"jentaculate"? Jeez Vitruvious , thats one I had to look up.

Sure, I jentaculate daily. It's, (or was) for the average Roman, a light breakfast of bread and fresh fruit, which would sustain him/her until "prandium", lunch. Hence post prandial activities are those undertaken after meals. If everyone learned Latin and Greek in school, instead of goofy things, this wouldn't be an issue!

And thus, my favourite word: antejentacular, that is: before breakfast. I don't know why really, but somehow I just find it more aesthetically pleasing that postprandial. And now I better shut up, or Kate's gonna' smack me upside the head.

Oh, what the hell! It's almost 10 pm and 30 degrees outside ... the brain mushes. I can imagine all kinds of exciting postprandial activities. What's the skinny on antejentacular activities?

Eudemonia.

Or just a Black Label out by the fish pond :)

my war stories:

I wuz with the now extinct beaver lumber back in oh, late 80s. I used to call them 'cussomers'. it was a no win situation, appeasement syndrome all around. I once ticked some asshole off when I popped up behind the counter and was faced with the problem of guessing which one got there first aaaaand picked the wrong one. oops! I wound up chasing the prick around the store pleading with him to let me help him but he was 'offended' at the fact I didnt have a periscope attached to my face and didnt ace the 50/50 decision.

after that I was with a one horse outfit called blue computers in st catharines run by one emperor zember. it too was a no win situation; I was given the responsibility of managing the store and no authority to make decisions. I was CONSTANTLY being second guessed and warned not to tick off any customers and in the same breath he would demand to know why I breached the policy of absolutely no refunds regardless of what they said. hey sh*thead, make up your mind.

and then firmly applied that rule one christmastime to someone who had a completely dead system on their hand christmas morning and demanded a full refund the next business day. when the emperor returned from vacation with his queen, I was told in that case I shouldacoulda given a refund in order to not tick the customer off. constantly second guessed, overruled and faced with contradictory orders and directives. they even tried to be all things to all people and had a goofy system set up to give quotes on all product enquiries that came in. problem was, it was up to the emperor at the warehouse to do the actual supplier lookup in order to keep that process behind the scenes and it took him as much a a month to do the quotes. and then he would bitch about the fact customers were complaining about how long *I* took to get back to them with price quotes. sheesh !!!

anyways, both these businesses are extinct having catered to the asswipes that demand service even when they are dead wrong.

I wrote a letter to the local home despot store describing my experiences at beaver lumber both as an employee and customer, calling their practices fukwadism. and cautioning home despot not to fall in the trap. the beaver people constantly pursued their own personal agenda above the customer AND the store. worst of both worlds.

my brother the retired plumber had the best answer ever to irate customers. any time they whined to him about stuff he had nothing to do with, he calmly and firmly told them never to call him again he did not have to and was not going to have them as a customer. and cited the case of a manufacturing defect in a water heater that was clearly the responsibility of the manufacturer to rectify. we had a good laugh about that one.

absolute best, top of the line, unmatched anywhere restaurant service Ive ever got is new york city. memorable.

"Sure, I jentaculate daily..." I thought that would cause you to go blind.
Instead of taking another language of dead guys, I decided to take shop in high school. It didn't make me a master carpenter, machinist or auto mechanic but I probably saved a lot of money doing stuff myself. I also know enough to know when someone is trying to pull a fast one. Besides, I mangled French so bad I wasn't going to try the patients of another teacher.

Funny thing is, Texas Canuck, my background is engineering: I've studied no greek or latin. Nevertheless, somehow I have a love of words, and I'm a native english speaker, and english is full of greek and latin words, so my logophilic joy is not actually based on dead stuff. Again, sorry I'm off topic, I guess it's just that I am suspicious of the motives of those who would castigate one for having a healthy interest in vocabulary (not that you were doing that, Texas Canuck).

No hidden motives on my part either Vitruvius.

You are the master, and I have much to learn.

Vitruvius, each to their own I guess. It is rather rare to hear someone using an expanded vocabulary these days unless they are trying to impress or put down others. That is obviously not the case here although it did get a whole lot of us scrambling for the dictionary. There is nothing wrong with adding a word or two to a discussion unless of course you are merely bloviating (thanks, Bill O'Reilly).

That "I'm the customer,and you owe me" attitude runs very smoothly in to the health care field as well...even tho it's 'free' health care! As a tech I see nurses run off their feet and get the brunt of it when the 'customer'er patient has to wait for the doctor or results.It is usually the non-urgent ER patient that have the worst attitude. The critically ill are generally very thankful.

For those of you using Firefox, if you install the "Answers" extension, then you can Shift + Alt + Click on any word or phrase in any web page, including words in the edit box of your own comments, and be instantly taken to a pop-up information page at answers.com - and since we're now majestically off topic, I'd like to invite anyone who is interested in further discussion of this matter to take it up with me via vitruvius2@gmail.com - so SDA can get back to The Strange Case of the Incorrect Customer.

We actually had great service this week from a Canadian business. We had ordered three pizzas from Panago. They were to be on multigrain crust but one was accidentally made on regular crust. They caught the error and remade the pizza but brought the "mistake" for us as well for free. And it still only took about 30 minutes.

mr vitius: is that 'greek' or 'geek' you talkin'?

and do tell, HOW does all that power in a transformer leap across the insulators between primary and secondary? what is the essence of induction and especially what is it about induction that the voltage changes proportional to the # secondary coils? hint: quantum mechanics. and if voltage doesnt travel at the speed of light, what is it that *is* doing the travelling whereby a voltage applied at one end of a conductor shows up at the other end at a time difference of the speed of light?

we're all waiting for your post csa meeting wisdom sirrah. that'd be the same csa that approved those deplorable noma christmas lights that fall apart regularly when the hard clay-like stuff joining the threads to the lamp glass lets go of the very smooth glass surface. the ones I got fed up and mailed in by the dozens back around 1986. you come up wit' dat one ???

I related a story back last christmas of the customer that had informed me i was not to say "Merry Christmas" as it was politicaly & socialy incorrect. I more or less said too bad i will say what i want in my store,the customer became very irrate insisting that i refrain from saying Merry Christmas. Infront of other customers I simply said to him "You want to hear politicaly & socialy correct pal, Get the F*** out & stay out & you can still have a Merry Christmas" My other customers in the store applauded & congratulated me, that it was about time someone stood up to these idiots.
I think also that my customer base has increased since.

"The customer is always right" : A statement lacking objective truth but an indispensable, mission-critical guiding principle. No sensible business owner would want his staff operating under any other guiding principle.

A complaining customer is a great asset and does you an enormous favour no matter how unpleasantly s/he provides that service.

Obviously some customers will be a "net cost" and will need to be transformed into ex-customers. The challenge is to fire a customer without his having felt fired, if at all possible.

My mother (may she rest in peace) always told me that she reserved her broadest smile for her crankiest customer.

'customer is always right':

proof of the veracity of paretto (sp) principle: 10% of your production line absorbs 90% of your time and attention and vise versa.

I loiyned dis in colledge...