The Customer Is Always Wrong
Follow one sickly, braying wildebeest at your peril.
Once upon a time some very smart business people (seemingly all at once) coined the phrase “the customer is always right.” They were, at the time, correct in that assessment and built massively successful companies adhering to that maxim.
BUT…
Things went to shit once the customer found out about it.
Running a business with the mentality that the customer is always right is a good and correct way to align your strategy with everyone on your team. Everyone in your organization has a nice default statement to fall back on if’n they have to make a judgment call “the customer is always right”. It also makes the customer feel appreciated and understood. That philosophy (when it is working in the background) is like magic. And, like magic, you don’t want the viewer to see your sleight of hand lest the trick be ruined.
But, dammit, if someone didn’t let the cat out of the bag and let the customers *gasp* know the secret. Once the customer found out what businesses were up to, they took it to heart and proceeded to abuse the living shit out of it. It heralded in the Age Of The Jackwagon1. It was then that the customer found their own fallback statement, “the customer is always right.” And they have been wielding it like a cudgel.
For the customer to exclaim that they are always right is inherently self-centered and fraught with entitlement and ease of abuse. You can see the problem it creates when taken to the extreme: a customer demanding a tuna fish sandwich in an ice cream parlor on the sole grounds that “the customer is always right”, is downright laughable.
Yet, this is where we are. We should have never let that secret out.
If you've been reading this newsletter for any length of time you know:
Each one of these concepts is enough to justify telling a person who thinks “they are always right” to sit the fuck down and shut the hell up.
BEING UNREASONABLE IS UNREASONABLE
From a business’s perspective, wholeheartedly ignoring any individual customer’s ridiculous demand is perfectly acceptable. In fact, I encourage it.
Any and all transactions require at least two interested parties to participate. Both want what the other has (a product, a service, or cash) and decide to make a trade. Ultimately the two parties can, and should, have a mutually beneficial experience. If one party makes unrealistic demands, the transaction fails. The failure of the transaction lands squarely on the party making the unrealistic demands (the Jackwagon, as it were).
Just as the customer can walk out of a store for not being serviced to their standard, so too can a store refuse service to a customer for being an asshole. It should happen more often.
Customers are, of course, the lifeblood of any business. Treating them well is in the best interest of the business. But we, as customers, need to hold up our end of the bargain and show some appreciation for the place allowing for a mutually beneficial transaction to happen. (I am not suggesting you roll over if served poorly, just don't be a jackwagon).
I would suggest the offending phrase be tweaked. Rather than “the customer (singular) is always right” the sentiment should be “the customers (plural) are always right”. This simple adjustment takes power away from any one customer from making an ass of themselves on your showroom floor.
In this day and age data is always right (the customer be damned). When the herd moves, it is best for the business to follow. But the whole herd needs to show you where it's going first. Follow one sickly, braying wildebeest at your peril.
Sure, it invites an uprising (or bankruptcy) if a business ignores all of its customers. I mean, if everyone is demanding tuna fish sandwiches, maybe you should stop selling ice cream.
Until then, feel free to show the jackwagons to the door.
“The customer is always right…in matters of taste.”
Like many other common phrases, we as people, seem to cherry pick just the part we want to hear.