The customer is always right? I don't think so!

[Saydrah]

Favorite response to the "You're losing a customer/I'll never shop here again/I'll go to your competitor from now on" line(s):

Roll eyes solemnly skyward, clap hand over heart, and intone in the most serious manner possible, "Promises, promises."

[Forensic Waitress]

Hi first time, very long time (found the site back I think in 2002, lost it for a while and then rediscovered it).

Clearly anyone with a brain will know that of course the customer is not always right.

I have worked in retail/hospitality since first starting work at the tender age of 15 (I am now 26).

People like that are part of the reason I can't wait to finish my degree and I will no longer have to deal with people. I wll have a lovely lab job far far away from their crap.

[blas]

You have to wonder about people like this. After the woman on foodstamps got me written up and suspended for trying to stop her from scamming the store and my spineless manager gave in to her because "That blas girl is trying to take food out of my childrens' mouths!" (yes ma'ame, your kids certainly need 8 6 packs of 24 oz Pepsis and 8 bags of chips!), I had to wonder what all she got. I got a copy of the written complaint. The manager wrote how I (note, ME!!!) had costed the store money by the manager having to give this woman something like $100 in gift cards and whatnot. Well, SHE was costing the store money by scamming our coupons! She wasn't allowed to have that many, and she played the "poor" card and I didn't fall for it, because if someone had seen that, I would have gotten in trouble ANYWAY!

I wonder how many other poor employees at grocery stores, Wal-Marts, etc, have been victims to this scamming foodstamp lady. I wonder how many other people she's had written up or suspended or even fired because of the shit she pulls. Sadly, I probably am not the only one. There are probably several others out there who have tried to stop her from scamming the store yet were pwned by management and the foodstamp scammer lives another day to do it again!

[Alpha Strike]

“The customer is always right” should be thrown out the window. It’s costing companies revenue, plus employees careers are being raked over the coals because of it.

Another key problem: employee morale. It's so incredibly corrosive to employee morale when they do everything they're supposed to - or even go above and beyond - and then management doesn't back them up and/or allows a customer to run over them.

I understand that management often times just wants to make a problem go away and the easiest way to do that is to give an SC whatever he/she wants, but as Greensinestro pointed out it just encourages the SC to pull the same trick at a later time.

They are given NO tools for how to recognize and deal with the chronic scammer. The one for who there IS no long and fruitful association. The dishonest, grabby, irrational, demanding jerk who will only ever cost the company money and valuable talent through attrition of experienced employees. The Sucky Customer.

Managers don't know the difference, and so in most cases they are FORCED to assume a customer is the former, recoverable type... and will keep bending over backwards for them in an attempt to pave over that roughness until their spines snap, simply because the company hasn't allowed them to do anything else.

In the case of repeat/chronic offenders, isn't a semi-functioning brain, some common-sense and a backbone all a manager really needs?

(Very good points in your post BTW.)

[qaxons]

This is why I'm glad I got out of The Trenches... I always quit places before I got fired for standing up against a scammer. Let them deal with it was my policy. I got really jaded and cynical after my first job fired me because the cleaning supplies made me cripplingly sick every night for the whole two weeks I lasted.

What's even worse is when they fire you for standing up for a coworker. There's a bunch of times when I was two inches from a fistfight with an SC over something they'd said to a coworker that got my fur up.

Eh, I shop online, or only go out when I know I want something specific, and I make a point never to be an SC.

I don't have any really good tails of this line being brought out from the working side, but I've heard it used a couple of times. Usually when they were, as that Dr. from Scrubs would put it... Wrong wrong wrong wrong... Wrong wrong wrong wrong... You're wrong...

CM: Cashier & Manager (former boss no less!)
SC: ... g'duh?

CM: Okay, with your coupons, that'll be... 159.38
SC: What!? but I did that tally myself at home, it should only be like 150!
CM: Ma'am, the coupons are added before tax. With coupons and tax, they are 159.38
(The SC had purchased about 300 dollars worth of goods, and had a coupon for Every. Damn. Item.)
SC: I only have 150 left on my stamps! This is outrageous! It should be less than 150 dollars!
CM: (not giving an inch) I'm sorry ma'am, the coupons made the total <a number I can't remember>, but tax makes it $159.38
SC: Don't you know that the customer is always right? I want to see a manager!
CM: I am the manager on duty right now ma'am.
SC: I want to see your manager!
CM: He is on vacation and will not be back until Thursday (It was Monday). If you want to, we can wait until he returns and deal with the situation or you can pay with another method of payment, or return at a later time when you have the money. (300 dollars worth of reshop? Ouch...)
SC: *sputters* Fine! I'm filing a complaint with your boss when he returns! *she then takes out a 10 dollar bill and pays the rest with her EBT (the new way of doing food stamps, apparently)*

[smileyeagle1021]

you know, i'm surprised no one else has pointed out dilbert
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilber...7166661101.gif
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilber...7113333102.gif

ratbert puts it very well.

[LifeCarnie]

Oh, and interesting note, the guy who supposedly came up with the phrase? Let's play Follow The Link...

http://www.ipadventures.com/blog/archives/000093.html

I couldn't find the reference on that blog, but from what I remember from my Management of Business class, the slogan "The Customer is always right." was the personal slogan of the founder of Nordstroms and was their corporate motto for years. Apparently, it is actually written in stone on the floor of the entryway to their first store, which is in Seattle, WA. At least it was there when the store opened, I don't know if it still is there.

Apparently, there was just a lecture on the subject at Loyola Marymount:

http://www.lmu.edu/PageFactory.aspx?PageID=40525

This also a pretty interesting read.

http://positivesharing.com/2006/07/w...tomer-service/

[Slow-Jo]

ugh! people like that should be shot with their own shit. i had an old job like that where my supervisor would NEVER help me out. would completely drive me up the freaking wall.
do you still work for that company? i would tell them where to stick it. or at least after ever time they cave for a customer i would ask them what it felt like being able to just give $$$ of the companies money away.

[greensinestro]

ugh! people like that should be shot with their own shit. i had an old job like that where my supervisor would NEVER help me out. would completely drive me up the freaking wall.
do you still work for that company? i would tell them where to stick it. or at least after ever time they cave for a customer i would ask them what it felt like being able to just give $$$ of the companies money away.

I know the feeling. I recall a moment years ago when a co-worker of mine was complaining about how this one customer really pissed her off because she told her supervisor how rude she was. This lady was never, ever rude to anyone and had a great record for over ten years. No matter what, even though there was no proof and no recording of the actual call, this lady had a black mark put in her file all because of what the customer said. Her manager's reply is, "Look, this customer made a complaint, and the moment they come up to the in-charge desk, they are right!" WTF? It's almost as bad as people who maliciously make up a lie about someone being a child molester when they aren't, just to get a thrill out of changing someone's life in an instant. This lady's career was now on the line for this, but months later, the mark was removed when the Union stepped in for her.

[Enigma]

I've never had a problem with a customer yelling that at me, because there comes a point that the customer, is in fact dead wrong. I want to strangle your supervisors, I mean seriously, when I worked in a call center my supervisor gave me permission to make a final decision on what the customer was owed (most people have to check it with him first, he trusted me to make a good decision), and a lot of times, if the call was escalated, the customer would end up with less.

Maybe I was lucky, because if I would have gotten those calls, my supervisor would have laughed at her and told her to grow up, then we would have laughed over it together and forgot about it. Plus, most of my managers understand how ridiculous customers can be, sounds too me like your sup's were trying to save their own skin.

If people are spoon-feeding idiots, then we will never see the end of SC's.

[allniter]

I used to work for comcast as a telephone rep back in the early days when it was called AT&T broadband.

I remember we had this crazy woman who constantly would call us up trying to get some poor agent to change her ex-boyfriend's email password so she could read his mail. After several successful attempts, the boyfriend managed to convince the higher up in the company to give him a secure password that could only be changed through a special procedure. As well, the company made it a firing offense for anyone in tech to change his password, for any reason.

For the week she would call in six times a day trying to change the password but got nowhere. Until finally she got this stupid idiot of a technician who bowed to her request. She was fired the next day for incompetence and failing to follow company procedure. What I still can't figure out is she knew who this woman was, knew what would happen to her and went ahead and did it. I guess maybe she wanted a new job with two weeks pay for being fired (I'm in Canada, we have such great laws ) but still how dumb can you be to try and proclaim your innocence like she did. Insanity.

[Alpha Strike]

The sad part about a lot of these situations and stories is that while the customer sucks (which we expect), things are made so much worse for all parties by weak, spineless or incompetent management.

[greensinestro]

Everyone should read this link to see if the title of this thread also applies.

http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=20232

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

you know, i'm surprised no one else has pointed out dilbert
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilber...7166661101.gif
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilber...7113333102.gif

ratbert puts it very well.

Linky no worky. Both of them.

[tropicsgoddess]

"The customer is always right" is such a bullshit phrase, yet so many of the corporate zombies of customer service and retail (along with SC's) spout that religiously.