5 Reasons why "The Customer is always right" is wrong

[Channizard]

Today I happened upon a site detailing the 5 Reasons why “The Customer is Always Right” is wrong. The first reason? It makes employees unhappy. It goes into grand detail about why employers should be putting their employees first, because when you put your employees first, they’ll put the customer first. An employee is useless if they aren’t happy with what they’re doing, and 50% of the time what they’ll be doing (In Customer Service anyway) is attempting to calm a customer.

Now, this isn’t to say that all customers are bad, but if you go into any food establishment on any given day, you will find someone who is there to just pick a fight to get something for free. I recall one fateful morning when I worked at McDonald’s. I had opened that day, and it was around 7:30. I was alone in the counter and drive thru, while there was one person alone in the Grill. I wasn’t set to have my next counter person until 8am. Far too late.


There was a hockey tournament that morning, and I was flooded with customers. My lobby was lined up for 3/4 people (not bad but when you’re by yourself? Ugh), and I had a line up of 3 cars coming through. So what happens? I get a call.

-Beep-
Hi there, what can I get for you today?
Hi, I want 4 sausage and egg mcmuffins, but they’re all different.
Okay, are they going to be in meals?
Not sure. Anyway, one of them has egg and no meat, but with ketchup and mustard. One has egg and sausage with –
Oh, hold on one second.. the first one with egg, did you want ham on it?
NO! NO MEAT
…okay.. carry on
One egg with sausage and ketchup and mayo. One has sausage and no egg with mayo bot no mustard and ketchup… one had sausage and egg with mustard mayo ketchup and pickles..
​

You could imagine my distress. Well, maybe not, considering most don’t know about when we have to switch from the breakfast to lunch menu on the tills. For some reason, it doesn’t allow adding ketchup/mayo/mustard on the breakfast menu, so I’m going back and forth a lot..


She then brings up the fact that one wasn’t meant to have mayo. I read it over to her, she agrees.. but one with no mayo. We then sit and clarify for another 5 mins which one this is. I then go over and tell the Grill guy not to put mayo on it (because zeroing out the one sandwich would zero them all out.. and would have to start again…) So he agrees and takes note of it.
She comes to the window, take money, hand over food.. and they sit there. They sit there, rifulling through food, while I go to take another window order in the store. I glance over, they’re still there… I finish the order at my window, they’re still there.. this time banging on the window.
I go to her, and she says “THIS WASN’T SUPPOSED TO HAVE MAYO ON IT”



I try to calmly explain to her that it doesn’t, it’s just that the slip says so. She refuses to believe me, and continues to argue. I ask her if she’d like to come in the store so we could fix this because there’s a line up, but that’s when she freaks out ‘NO, I AM RIGHT HERE IN FRONT OF YOU. WE CAME THROUGH THE DRIVE THRU SO WE DIDN’T HAVE TO COME IN AND YOU ARE GOING TO FIX IT RIGHT THE F*CK NOW.”


It was only by sheer luck that the manager’s wife comes through and tells me to go away and deals with it. Know what she does? She takes the order by writing it down, hands it to the man on the Grill where he says “Yeah. I made all that that way.” She then tells him to make it again, and gives these people the food for free. I was far too frazzled by that circumstance to continue my shift, but when I came in the next day two managers came to me with different explanations. The owner says, you argued with them. One supervising manager says, some people just want to pick a fight for free food.


At one point do employees stop taking the rap for it? Honestly if the manager’s wife hadn’t shown when she did, by how frustrated this woman made me, I was ready to throw the food at her out the window and get the line moving. I had other customers to serve, and frankly she just wasn’t doing it for me.


The fact of the story here and the original topic being.. I heard the woman clearly say over the intercom. No mayo. I told the Grill.No mayo. When she nearly threw the bag at me, but I still saw the sandwich in question in her hand.. NO MAYO SEEPING FROM THE SIDES.


Customers will argue with you just to get something for free, and this does not make it right. I have seen countless former co-workers who were bullied and taunted by customers until a manager would come along an resolve it with “You’re right” and give them whatever it was for free. Is that all it takes to get anything these days? Throw a fit like a child and it’ll be handed to you?

 

[SaShman]

The first reason? It makes employees unhappy.

This I agree with, when I was working at Pizza Hut this one customer would always be a cunt on the phone if he didn't get a special price, he'd always ask to speak to the manager and the manager would always discount it for him. This used to piss me off tremendously and I'd always tell the boss to just not bother with this guy.

but if you go into any food establishment on any given day, you will find someone who is there to just pick a fight to get something for free.

I remember one guy complained to me that he got the wrong pizza (which he did). He could have been polite about it but he immediately got angry before I even said anything. I chuckled at him told him he was right and made him a new one. Then the guy just said "uhhh alright" and waited for his pizza.

I disliked most of the customers while I was there but I would give the customers (who I did like) discounts, free drinks etc (my boss didn't give a shit about it). So basically it encouraged them to come back and be polite too.

I never really bought into the whole customer is always right thing either. Of course if I made a genuine mistake I would apologize, do my best to fix it and offer them a free drink or something. But if they were just being a wanker I generally wouldn't cave in.

My boss told me a story of when he had to deliver pizza to a brothel and he was incredibly late. When he arrived, a woman stormed out of the building dressed only in a G string (ie topless) and started screaming at him for being late. My boss just burst out laughing and when the lady asked what was so funny he said something like "I'm sorry I don't know if I'm supposed to be paying you for this or what".

Long story short, dealing with shitty customers is a lot easier if you're a smart ass about it.

EDIT: One positive I can see with working with shitty customers is that now you know how easy it is to get free shit, you can do it yourself.

 

[SapphireStar]

Christ, I wanna hit the bitch just reading this! Ive worked in retail since I was 17 and I fucking hate it. Sadly its the only form of work I know, but Im trying to get into office work. Ive had some nasty bastards in my time, I lose count over them. And there are more bad then good customers.

When Im shopping, I dont go mad if the cashier does something wrong cause I know what they are going through. I snarl at people who start on them over the simplest things and usually the things they start over are pathetic!!!

I envy people who can leave work at the door and go home and be happy. I end up taking the negative energy home and snap at people. Its not worth the hassle. I hope karma sorts them out cause the bad ones are usually sad, lonely arseholes whom have no one and get off on making your day worse just cause the item they want is out of stock or whatever.

Ive had bosses whom back down if the customer starts and is clearly wrong. That pisses me off so much. And one particular boss tried to get my asian colleague to apologise to a woman whom was clearly being racist to her!! And Im happy she refused to as the customer was in the wrong and my colleague was defending herself verbally! Our manager was a kiss arse and gave her an apologie and money off vouchers!?! Another time I was complained about when a woman asked for help and I told her I didnt work for the department she was enquiring about. However when she got someone from the department, they spoke to her like she was shit! But I got reported and complained about cause I didnt help her!??!? Stupid fucking bitch.

Ive had some good bosses who dont take any shit and I love it. The amount of times Ive had a manager or supervisior come to my aid is ridic all cause some twat wouldnt listen to me cause Im a girl (I look young for my age, 25) and I clearly dont know what Im talking about! And the manager will be called and repeat EVERYTHING I had told the customer and they have a go at them for wasting our time. LOVE IT!!!!


Fucking jerks! Retail does end up making up really hate people and its why the middle finger was invented

 

[Saix]

I'd always dreaded working behind a counter, having seen how much crap those employees deal with from obnoxious customers that do complain like that. I only had one job like it in a corner-shop kind of establishment, and I vowed never again. It's as if they think you're not human, or indeed have no emotions at all and can take that shit.

My current work is customer-orientated but mostly just over the 'phone. I work in local government doing admin, so if someone doesn't get their way and a compromise wasn't reached (in their favour, of course) then I'd get the "why do you expect me to pay my council tax? How is this fair?! I PAY YOUR WAGE!... CHANGE THE POLICY THEN!!!!" speech at the end of it, amongst some insulting profanities of my uselessness etc.

What people don't seem to appreciate is that the employees on ground level can't [reasonably] make compromises or decisions outside of existing protocol/policies (and so on), and it's mainly out of managerial discretion - and just be expected to take their abuse because it's what they apparently pay their tax for. I pay them too, dammit.

Why we have to molly-coddle them is beyond me. I'd quite happily tell them it's not going to happen their way and hang up.

 

[Marquis of Granby]

no customers = no money = no business = no employees = no money

since the customer's the money man i think they expect to be in control. as a consumer i dont really give a shit. if i get what i went into the shop to buy then im not overly bothered if i was served with a smile or anything. when i go to a shop im paying for the item im buying not for service with a cheesy grin and small talk. even if the person serving was a cunt its not in my nature to be a cunt back

as someone dealing with customers i think its almost an obligation to be two faced and fake. i dont get paid to like people but if im a cunt i might quickly find myself out of a job. if that customers a cunt or generally just awkward thats their problem. if they somehow manage to piss me off i'll just vent when they leave. but i think in all walks of life there's gonna be someone who feels youre beneath them for whatever reason, you just have to realise how sad they must be to treat someone like that - for the most part i dont get paid enough to give a shit - so theyre essentially making an arse of themselves.

but you definitely do get people who just want to pick a fight to get something for nothing. its just one of those things.

the customer might not always be right but as long as theyre paying you should try to make them think they are...just cause its all about money

 

[Bambi]

Ah this is one of the reasons why I really don't want to get back into retail. I worked in a womans clothes shiop, and some of them customers were nightmares and would also use 'THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT' line. Fuck off

I can be quite quick tempered, so I'd have to duck out sharpish with gritted teeth telling them I'l go get the manager/Supervisor

Lucky for me though, my manager wasn't one for just bending to what the customer was after

I remember one woman having an absolute fit over something she had miss-heard, taken wrongly whatever with Clare, demanding the number for head office. Some people are just fuckign twats, and working with customers can be an absolute nightmare. I went straight into an office job after that <_<

Though we had some butt heads over tyhe phone there as well, but that was easier to deal with - we couldn't exactly give them anything, and alot of the time you could understand their frustrations as we were an accident investigations company. If things were taking ages to get moving, they are bound to start getting arsey

though there was this one dude, we all had a copy of his number, if we saw it flash up on our phones, we were allowed to immediately disconnect the call or hang up on him if we ever got him

but yeah, that the customer is always right line is pish,. Its like giving them an excuse to be rude. If I'm displeased with summat, I'l mention it if it's a big deal, but I'm not about to start spouting off over it, what's the fucking point?

Unfortunately, it's these same cunts that pay your wages...and tbh, not all folk are like that, but the ones that are can really ruin your fucking day

I hate customers. Always have.

 

[Espurr]

This is why I prefer to work with little customer activity. While some of the customers I have dealt with are fine, others can go jump off a bridge into a river of acid for all I care. I don't understand why whenever they complain, we have to comply to their demands when they're not always right. If they leave and never come back, that's a great deal of stress off our shoulders.

I, thankfully, haven't dealt with many idiots. I have instead seen stories about what the cashiers have to go through. For example, a customer wants a box of Gain. The price is about $11 or so but it was in the wrong spot. Once the woman found out she started complaining that the price should have been 6$ while in the process making a lot of noise in the store and catching my attention as well as holding up an already long line. Sadly that is also a common issue as well with those types of customers, despite the fact that we always rearrange the store back as much as possible, we can't always get everything. Yet even still knowing this, the manager just gives the woman the stupid Gain for half price. If they're going to be haggling prices like this, who is to say they won't try it again? If they try it again, will the manager just give them their demand again? That's why I say if they want to leave, let them. It's a big corporation, more customers will come.

 

[bequiaboit]

Where I live, the customer is always wrong!
It enrages me to hear the story. A "customer sometimes is wrong" policy should be justified as well.

 

[The Illusive Man]

Couldnt agree more and this is one of the reasons i got out of retail when i did. It is pure bs how some customers act like such asshats when they normally wouldnt just because they want something for nothing.

I've been on the managing side as well, and really gritted my teeth when having to deal with these kinds of people, the only reason you give them what they want is to attempt to get rid of them as quickly as possible as not to upset your other customers or the staff that was originally serving them, despite how much it seems like your pandering to there every whim.

If there just being a total asshat, I used to find it better to just give them a refund and ask them nicely to leave. Sure they may leave pissed off, but at least you took a stand for your staff and the other customers are usually actually happy that you wouldnt let someone who was kicking off for no reason get away with what they want.

 

[Rydia]

Oh God I agree. I worked in retail for two years and I came across some very nasty people. I had people put clothes on the clearance rack and try to claim that they found it there, customers trying to bring back items they never even bought, and others that would leave some very nasty stuff in the fitting rooms. Another annoying things, I would be folding a table at the very end of the night and some customer would come buy and unfold just about everything I just folded. Is it really necessary to pick up every item of clothing of every size and hold it up? If you usually wear a large, a small is not going to fit!

Even more annoying, only certain employees can do returns. Several customers would come up wanting to return something and when I would tell them that they had to go back to customer service, they would argue with me for quite some time. Even if I wanted to I couldn't do the return because the button does not exist on my monitor!

 

[Tmoo]

no customers = no money = no business = no employees = no money

since the customer's the money man i think they expect to be in control. as a consumer i dont really give a shit. if i get what i went into the shop to buy then im not overly bothered if i was served with a smile or anything. when i go to a shop im paying for the item im buying not for service with a cheesy grin and small talk. even if the person serving was a cunt its not in my nature to be a cunt back

as someone dealing with customers i think its almost an obligation to be two faced and fake. i dont get paid to like people but if im a cunt i might quickly find myself out of a job. if that customers a cunt or generally just awkward thats their problem. if they somehow manage to piss me off i'll just vent when they leave. but i think in all walks of life there's gonna be someone who feels youre beneath them for whatever reason, you just have to realise how sad they must be to treat someone like that - for the most part i dont get paid enough to give a shit - so theyre essentially making an arse of themselves.

but you definitely do get people who just want to pick a fight to get something for nothing. its just one of those things.

the customer might not always be right but as long as theyre paying you should try to make them think they are...just cause its all about money

no. it is not okay for customers to treat employees like shit just because they're paying money. assholic behavior does not have any justification.

 

[Marquis of Granby]

no. it is not okay for customers to treat employees like shit just because they're paying money. assholic behavior does not have any justification.

i wasnt suggesting it was. theres no real excuse for being an arsehole to anyone but it happens. you cant spend your entire life crying over it.

 

[Channizard]

no. it is not okay for customers to treat employees like shit just because they're paying money. assholic behavior does not have any justification.

Oddly enough this was the standing argument of pretty much everywhere I worked.

All three jobs I've ever had, were in customer service/retail/serving people, so unfortunately I can only imagine where my 4th job is going to be with such experience. =/

1st Job: England, Bar tender. Possibly the best of the three considering if I did get an asshat, it was usually because they were already drunk, so I couldn't serve them/had to stop serving them and just send them on their way or have a Porter deal with them. I'm trying to get back into this because while it had long awkward hours, it had good pay, usually good customers, and good tips.

2nd Job: McDonalds. olawd I regret ever taking this but I had to because it was all that was available to me. In the one year that I've spent there, I left with little hours (being spread out to too many employees throughout the day), and small paychecks.. oh yeah, and over the year, I got one 12 cent raise. Yippie me =/

3rd Job: Spent a month at Tim Hortons being pretty good having McDicks' exp under my belt, but they fired me for having a stressed out panic attack on shift during my probation period. My manager stressed several times over the phone while I tried to explain to her "The customers pay your checks. If there aren't any customers, you won't get any money and nobody wins."...Okay, but for such a huge establishment such as McDonald's or Tim Hortons, does it really matter if you're pissy to one customer once? It's a massive corporation, and they obviously like the food, so it's not like they're going to boycott Big Macs for the rest of their life. They will be back. Maybe not to our store, but they will come back to us.

I agree with everything everybody has said about customer's just being finicky for nothing, or rather to get something, and it teaches a horrible lesson that anyone can do this. =/ Who's to say that if they do it again in the next 5 visits, that it's all for a legitimate reason, and not just because you kissed their ass the first time?

The worse are the managers who just bow down to a customer's every whim. However once my manager told an old guy at McD's who came up for a refill during lunch (refills are free) and just thought he could bypass the line. He stood near the front, albeit next to the person at the cashier who had been served and was waiting for food. My manager just looks at him, watching as he had come up waddling over with his cup and tells him "GO BACK TO THE BACK OF THE LINE JOHN, YOU CAN'T BUDGE" or something to that effect. I mean, he already paid for his coffee and the greedy cunt is coming back for more, the least he can do is wait like a decent person like the rest of them.

Although maybe this has something to do with my hatred of old people.. hrm....

 

[Fusionist]

Ugh, I work with a pizza franchise that basically assign people to posts (like sport events, amusement parks, etc) that is immensely back-watered; cash registers are old relics that can't erase canceled or changed orders and requires us to print out a receipt EVERY TIME a customer changes their mind and we accept cash only. We also count every single cup and slice plate in inventory so we can't give out things for free. So while we don't deal with drive-thru stress, it's still difficult, and there are so many dicks and douchebags that try to worm there way to free slices and other petty shit. I mean, really, when it comes to food, everybody becomes the dregs of society, it's appalling.

This summer prices went up for everything, but there was still an old ad that advertised this family combo for a buck less than what it is now. Woman comes up and asks for it, and I clarify that the price is more than what she saw. Now granted a dollar can mean a lot to people, but she had several 20.00 bills in her hand, so a dollar would not be an issue. Yeah, apparently I was wrong, since she went off, going on about how we were doing false advertising and other bullshit. I even pointed to the menu board behind me that showed the correct price, but she wouldn't have any of it.

Luckily my manager was there (and thank goodness because I'm pretty weak-I haven't burst into tears yet, but it can happen >_>) and offered the woman an extra drink for free with the meal, and that stopped the drama there. But what killed me was that if my manager was willing to give into the customer, we might has well have just charged for the lower price, 'cause the free drink was worth more than the dollar loss we would have incurred.

But my most of the managers absolutely understand the the difficulties with customers and how limited employees are in what they can do. So there's that minor condolence that I don't get lectured. If I myself tried to pull something like give a free drink, than I get slammed though, so that's annoying >_>

I like to think that I was a pleasant customer before I got a job working in the food industry, but now whenever I go to these 24 Hours places after I got off my shift, I don't care if it takes them 10 minutes to make my meal, because I sympathize with these poor bastards T.T

 

[Tmoo]

i wasnt suggesting it was. theres no real excuse for being an arsehole to anyone but it happens. you cant spend your entire life crying over it.

I don't believe I said anything like crying. It's just that. It's not okay to be an asshole, period, unless you're paying them to be an asshole or they're paying you. It happens, that doesn't mean I don't have the right to denounce it. I will spend my entire life believing that being an asshole is inexcusable behavior. That isn't crying over it, mate.

 

[Davey Gaga]

I must be quite lucky. Boots is by no means perfect but I can't say that I have an awful lot of sales like that. I wonder if it's because I work in the Pharmacy and people come to us more for advice than anything else - most customers are dealing with things they're unfamiliar with and tend to accept my word as true. If they were placing a food order and for some reason they thought it was wrong, I can see why they'd be a lot more upset than if, say, their hayfever tablets didn't work for them.

Boots strives to be the "#1 pharmacy-led consumer-care business" and we're all taught to push for legendary customer care values. Our stats for that are pretty high (how much of that is genuine is a story for another thread/time) in general and I think it's because we do put the customer first. There have never been many instances I've seen where the customer was actually wrong/things weren't resolved peacefully. Some customers are more unreasonable than others but to be honest there's only been 2 or 3 customers I've ever found to be impossible to deal with (and it's usually nothing I've done, they're usually more angry at the NHS/health system than me or my manager). If we ever do come under fire, though, managers do tend to give the customer what they're after to please them (it doesn't happen that often, though!).

I'd usually complain more but Boots tends to do a lot right by the customer and any massive unpleasantries usually occur at the Pharmacy and, again, it's not our fault. Far too many people have little to no understand of how Pharmacies actually work and we get a lot of the brunt that should be thrown on Doctors or Suppliers.

They're fair to the employees, too. Other than personality clashes or some rogues, nothing really gets to us (as far as I know) that ends up defracting on to the customers.

Less specifically, I think a balance needs to be formed.

Bad experiences = fewer customers = less income = lower success but;
Unhappy employees = bad sales = fewer customers = lower success

So pleasing both parties should lead to the highest amount of success.

 

[Marquis of Granby]

I don't believe I said anything like crying. It's just that. It's not okay to be an asshole, period, unless you're paying them to be an asshole or they're paying you. It happens, that doesn't mean I don't have the right to denounce it. I will spend my entire life believing that being an asshole is inexcusable behavior. That isn't crying over it, mate.

im in agreement.

though if you want to denounce it, it might be a good idea to practise what you preach and stop being one - twas you who obviously misunderstood my original post...mate?

also, what dave said

 

[Valvalis]

Today I happened upon a site detailing the 5 Reasons why “The Customer is Always Right” is wrong. The first reason? It makes employees unhappy. It goes into grand detail about why employers should be putting their employees first, because when you put your employees first, they’ll put the customer first. An employee is useless if they aren’t happy with what they’re doing, and 50% of the time what they’ll be doing (In Customer Service anyway) is attempting to calm a customer.

This is absolutely 100% true.

Customers will argue with you just to get something for free, and this does not make it right. I have seen countless former co-workers who were bullied and taunted by customers until a manager would come along an resolve it with “You’re right” and give them whatever it was for free. Is that all it takes to get anything these days? Throw a fit like a child and it’ll be handed to you?

I think the main problem is that for some strange reason, many people in this day and age feel a very large and unwarranted sense of entitlement in everything they do. I think the phenomenon of companies fighting tooth and nail to corner their markets, combined with the emergence of a new consumer base that is unfamiliar with the widespread poverty experienced by previous generations (such as during the war times of the early twentieth century and the centuries leading up to them), has produced a culture that expects to be waited on left and right by businesses, with the argument that the employees "get paid to take care of them." And also, the middle-aged generations who had rough times growing up have now come into a relatively more successful time period, and want to splurge as much as they can to make up for everything they "missed out on" when they were younger. The many people who entertain these notions of entitlement are somewhat alienated from reality as well; so many transactions take place on the Internet nowadays that people often forget there are real people behind those service counters, and not just registers and machines. And also, sadly, most of the people who have enough money to be constant consumers have never worked in retail, so they have no idea how stressful that kind of job is and feel no obligation to treat retail employees with respect. I've seen this to be true firsthand, having worked in retail for almost 10 years now, because the most pleasant customers I've interacted with have always been fellow retail employees from other companies; and the nastiest have been extremely wealthy or unemployed older women, who likely didn't work at all for most of their lives as a result of society having frowned upon women working back when they were growing up. Which is of course not their fault, but it just proves that the more familiar you are with someone's situation, the easier it is to empathize with them, and vice versa. And it's sad that people who have never worked crappy retail jobs can't use their imaginations and assume the retail employees go through hell everyday, but there's not really anything that can be done about it, unfortunately. I personally try to be as stern and unyielding as possible when customers complain at me, because they're usually delusional and have read the advertisements wrong; but there's only so much justice I can fight to uphold before my supervisor buckles under and gives the person what they're bitching about

 

[Fusionist]

I think the main problem is that for some strange reason, many people in this day and age feel a very large and unwarranted sense of entitlement in everything they do.

I agree wholeheartedly to this. In my experience personally, people often expect us to graciously obey every little whim they have >_>

When it comes to food (since that's really the only experience I've had), it's just pettiness that really annoys me. "Oh, this pizza's too greasy," hands the 3/4 eaten slice back "I want my money back." Fucking cunt, it's PIZZA with cheese and meat on it - THAT YOU ATE X_x

 

[Channizard]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU I JUST ACCIDENTALLY CLICKED ON BOOKMARK AND LOST MY WHOLE 5 PARAGRAPH POST.

Anyway I had points on why I agreed with the lot of you, as well as an experience with some Timmy Ho's bitch. I'm coming back later to repost since I'm raging too hard right now. I BLAME THE GOD DAMN CUSTOMERS.