Top 5 reasons why “The Customer is Always Right” is wrong
“This job would be great if it wasn’t for the fucking customers.” - Randal, Clerks
I’ve performed menial labor as a slave in a retail store. I’ve toiled away for years in call centers where the goal of making customers happy superseded all logic and reason. Thankfully I now work someplace where my boss feels the same as the title of this post: the customers is not always right. But all too many companies blindly adhere to the mantra in an attempt to persuade their clientele to stick with them. Most companies would rather side with someone they’ve known 10 minutes over someone they’ve known 10 years.
Read the article. Give it to your boss if you think you won’t get fired for it. Post it in your cubicle if you can get away with it. Just read it and be happy knowing you’re not alone: there are others out there who feel your pain. There are companies that care about their employees.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Good Layout and design. I like your blog. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. .
Jason Rakowski
April 7th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
You know, they keep teaching us in Business classes and Consumer Behavior classes that it’s more expensive to get a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer and I’ve always felt that line was bullshit because of the very things that this article brings up. You end up spending way more compensating their unhappiness than you would on someone who’s happy to come to your company for the first time and will probably have better success with that new customer anyway. Good riddance to bad customers!