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Customer Is Always Right: Where to draw the line?

by AndrewHansen
18 replies
Hey Warriors,

I'm interested to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

So by the principles of good business:

"You can never win an argument with a customer"

"The customer is always right"

etc - We've all heard it before.

I've learned (and unfortunately had to have repeated) numerous lessons about dealing with disgruntled customers since being in online business, especially starting out very young and probably with a little too much ego for my own good... but I like to think I've come along way since my beginnings and I'm proud of the way I'm able to handle tough situations with customers these days.

Nevertheless, every now and then a situation comes up that makes me question, where really is the line on the whole "customer is always right" thing?

I'm always willing to accept feedback from an angry customer, an angry review, a stupid refund request, a blatant lie here or there... even stretch our stated refund/cancellation guidelines now and then without much of a peep.

But for me, there are certain things that cross the line.

If someone's going to, despite my politeness during our disagreement, forgo all decency and resort to a personal insult... that's it. Cancel all access, refund payments (if appropriate), block their email.

If someone's going to resort to threatening me... same goes. You lose your rights as a customer who paid me money and I'm not going to give in to you. You'll get a refund based on our policy and I'm not communicating with you any longer.

Those are lines in the sand that have seemed to develop for me but because of the never ending "customer is always right" mantra, I still struggle to hold those lines firm.

What are your lines in the sand?

Where do you draw the line in your business if you've come into these situations?

And what do you think about doing business in this way? Is the customer REALLY always right?

Andrew
#customer #draw #line
  • Profile picture of the author Kurt
    The saying "the customer is always right" was simply an advertising slogan created by another marketer, and doesn't have a foundation in solid business practices.

    IMO, a better business strategy would be to learn that a good employee is much harder to find than a good customer. So if it comes down to a good worker or a good customer, I'll draw a line there and choose the good employee.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin Marshall
      I think it depends on what you are selling. Let's say you are selling a service where you are paying someone to do a service for you. Your worker does the task. You pay the worker. The client gets the work and complains and wants a refund. If you give him a refund, not only do you lose the money from the client, but you just paid your worker money to do a task. In those situations, I would rather give them free stuff than give them money back. We used to do this when I worked for the yellow pages. No matter how hard you tried, there were always claims for wrong ads. When you have tens of thousands of ads to manage, it is bound to happen. The next year, we would give the customer a free ad, or a larger ad at no additional charge to the customer. If the customer was really ticked off, we might still give them money back, but usually we didn't unless a phone number was printed wrong. Let's say you are selling an ebook. The customer doesn't like it and wants a refund. I would be more apt to give a refund in this case, but you could still give them more free stuff. Lastly, I think it depends on how much you care about your feedback. If you want positive feedback from everyone on your thread, then I would be pretty liberal about processing refunds. If you don't care, or you have a product or service with a lot of positive feedback already, then you could probably get away with a bad review from time to time.
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  • Profile picture of the author RandomHavoc
    I know I'm new, and may not be of the right mindset to answer this question... I'll start with a bit of background... For about 5 years I was the manager of a gas station with it's customer service orientation complaints are regular, and disputes happen. The one thing I learned is that the customer is not always right. Most of the time they are just flat wrong. If the customer is making life hell for your employees, which includes yourself, they are not right for your business. Happy, loyal employees that enjoy their jobs are far and away more valuable than 1 or 2 customers. Customers that are abrasive, or downright rude having the mindset that they are 'always right' and the company should bend to their whims seek an unfair advantage from the company over other customers because, afterall, they're always right aren't they? For me the biggest nightmare though is the effect on employees though, if your help desk, customer service, support staff, or yourself if you're going it alone are constantly being told the customer is always right, the customer is always right, until they're whispering it in their sleep it actually leads to worse customer service in my experience. They can only take so much, and when the company sides with the customers over their own interests it begins to show in the way those individuals exposed to it are acting towards the other customers. I think this 'age old wisdom' of the customer is always right needs to be buried. It just isn't true anymore, if it ever was. The customers should be happy, but if a customer can't be pleased they aren't right for your business. Sometimes it is better to 'let one get away' than to bend over backwards to keep a single customer.
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    • Profile picture of the author Rockmanfl
      I do agree with the saying "the saying the customer is always right" too a point. I think it's important to listen to them and try to do everything in your power to help them out, because if they see that you are trying to help them anyway you can, that understanding can go a long way. But at the same time there does come a time when there are some people who you will never be able to please and may get too a point where you will just have to cut your loses and move on, hopefully to save some of your sanity
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  • Profile picture of the author Scott Ames
    Fire Your Bad Clients - Entrepreneur.com
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  • Profile picture of the author Pipinscott
    Being in business gives you the advantage of determining whom you want to associate with long term.

    Yes we do rely on a good flow of new customers, however we owe it to our good customers to be available to them. If we are expending all our energy on a relationship that cannot be amiable then aren't our good customers being cheated?

    I appreciate your tactic of giving the refund and cutting the relationship when it is so negative. It seems that even if you were to "convince" this type of buyer you were "right" the next encounter would only be that much more likely to be too labor intensive and have little hope.

    Another saying that may be appropriate is to "have a heart of gold and hide of a rhinoceros".
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  • Profile picture of the author Jamian
    Henry Ford once said about his best selling Model-T " The customer can have any color he wants, so long as it's black". I think it comes down to 1%-3% of the customers if necessary we have to draw the line.
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  • Profile picture of the author AllanWard
    I heard it said once that the customer is not always right, but the customer always deserves respect.

    In the service industry I operate in, the customer rarely knows as much as I do. They sometimes come to me with ideas of what they want to do, and sometimes they're wrong, or the ideas aren't as 'right' as they could be. It's my job to be respectful and help them understand the right way to do something.

    When it comes to customer complaints, I don't think you have to agree with the customer's point of view all the time, but you do need to respect their opinion. Sometimes instead of trying to win arguments you're better off walking away.
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  • Profile picture of the author Samuel Baker
    If the customer as you said goes beyond the point of decency and respect then I would cut all ties also. But in saying that I believe the customer relationship must be maintained to a very high level in every business model. You want them to return even if they were not satisfied by what good or service you provided. You must work out a balance where you are able to offer in some cases a 'Money Back' or complete the given job as it was detailed to you.

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  • Profile picture of the author SEOFocused
    customer is always right is not practiced by even some big giants, how can it be right for online service providers? say if i buy a laptop from Best Buy and use it for a month, then find my friend's new laptop cooler than mine. so i decide to go to Best Buy to exchange mine with the newer one or return my laptop, will they say i'm right and refund my money or do an exchange? no they will not. even if they are willing to take back the laptop, they will charge me 20% restocking fee. just an example. it is however practiced on some fast food chains where you got a cold fries and want to exchange for a hot one.

    regarding unhappy clients, it is always good to have precautions not to have an unhappy client to begin with. always level set with your clients and make sure you are both on the same page. if the clients know exactly what they are paying for and if you are delivering exactly that, there is no room to argue.

    there will be some who will always try to take advantage and will try to get away with free services but the % of such clients are slim.

    just make sure your clients know what they are paying for and what will they expect including reporting format so that there is no room to argue. if there is an argument, you will just have to deal with it on a case by case basis which is part of life.

    best wishes
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  • Profile picture of the author Rod Cortez
    Exactly what Kurt said. A lot of people quote the "customer is always right" as business 101 or a "solid business principle" when nothing could be further from the truth. "Servicing the customer", "exceeding customer expectations", etc. are just a few of the mission statements that I've seen during my two decades in the business and entrepreneurial world that ring far more truth than that one.

    Drawing the line really depends on many things. For our company we draw the line when the customer becomes unreasonable and/or we are not able to meet their needs. So if someone makes threats, does something illegal, demands a 1,000 dollar service for something they paid $10 for, drains too many resources beyond what was agreed upon, etc. is when it's time to fire the customer or point them in another direction. This should always be done with professionalism (unless there's a bodily threat made against you).

    I actually refunded a coaching client of mine last week because he was not following the contract we agreed upon, did not read the material that was given to him, and he continually asked me the same questions a different way over and over again. After several admonitions, I finally advised him that I could not help him and gave him an immediate refund. The best advice I could give him at that point was brutal honesty, which was he was not ready to learn the skill sets he would need to succeed.

    RoD
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  • Profile picture of the author jacktackett
    A lot of good advice from folks, especially Rod and Kurt.

    In general, a good customer support orientation comes down to listening and understanding what the customer wants/needs/ is trying to communicate. Which means almost all situation can be unique.

    Abusive customers are probably at the top of the list to get rid of and not tolerate their actions - but always? If they've been a great customer for a while and suddenly melt down on a rep - is it worth it to send them packing? What if they're grieving for the loss of a loved one or if they're just having a bad day and taking it out on you? While not a mature response, its a very human response.

    I always teach my front line folks to listen - get as much of the facts as possible - and then either solve the issue or escalate it. And if there is an abusive bent - send them to me.

    note - I'm not saying cuddle 100% of your customers. The bad ones really do need to be sent packing. I've sent more bad customers to my competitors than I care to remember. Even got chewed out by my managers too.

    Also, a pissed off customer is a great opportunity - to really show them what type of vendor you are. If you can win them over, you'll have a great reference account. If not, tell them to kiss your bum and that your competitor is having a great sale.

    and finally - yea, I've had a few customers that I wouldn't send to my competitors or my worst enemy - usually those were sent to the authorities to handle.

    So to make a short story long - listen and don't interrupt and try to help the customer. Put yourself in their shoes, then even if they are wrong, see if you can help them. But you and your reports don't have to take continual abuse - in that case, if the customer won't listen to reason and you can't make them happy - send them packing.

    best,
    --Jack
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  • Profile picture of the author jedz
    Banned
    "customer is always right" yes, but that's really depends on the situation.

    Customer will not always be correct for some manners.
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  • Profile picture of the author isha_rubiana
    its great question and i agree with Jack ....

    im also handling customer complain, they always mad and sometime wanna more "bit attention" from our company, so all i can see from them, they are complain bcoz they are care and , they just wanna us listening all complain without any "hard argue"
    if we can satisfy our customer they will tell our product and service to bout 5 (ur potential customer) ppl, but if ur customer not satisfy they will tell to 9 ppl..

    customer isnt always rite but always important..
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  • Profile picture of the author fivecentechidna
    Working in retail, I know that the customer is sometimes not right
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  • Profile picture of the author Lloyd Buchinski
    A police officer I know mentioned that he enjoys 'the customer is always wrong' part of his job.
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  • Profile picture of the author Justinfm
    You can always practice the 80:20 principle with your clients. You'll find that 20% of your clients cause you 80% of your headaches. Imagine how much more productive you would be if you didn't have those headaches.

    The question is not if you should fire bad clients, it's when. The best time is before they ever get to be a client. If they are being demanding and difficult before they ever buy, that's a good time to fire them. The earlier you figure out and fire that difficult customer, the better it will be for both of you.

    The concept of "the customer is always right," gets people into trouble because we keep trying and trying to satisfy a client and at the end of it we have wasted a lot of both of our time. Now we are both mad. It's classic lose-lose.

    I would say that "the customer is always right" is an old concept based on customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is still important, but now you have to actively wow your customers. It's expected that we satisfy the client. To that end, we can't spend a lot of time on clients who are never satisfied.
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