‘The Nightmare’ Customer

[saad_sinpk]

A few years ago I was sitting amongst six people in the foyer outside a StomperNet event. We were talking about SEO, as there were some high powered SEOs in the small group. Just then, one of them stopped the conversation and started reading an email he received on his Blackberry. The email was from one of his recent customers. The email complained in a fashion that could be best described as the tantrum of a two year old. While it was being read there was something very similar to the style of it as I had a similar experience a few months earlier.
I guessed the author of the email and I was correct, it was the same person I had a run-in with a few months prior. Another person in the group had a similar bad experience with this customer as well. So, out of seven people in the group, three had a negative experience with the SAME customer. What are the odds? It should come as no surprise that this individual was given a complete refund and told he would never get service again.
So, what happened? How did this customer get so bad? In my experience with him, he countered back to me The customer is always right!! I disagreed. The RIGHT customer is always right. The WRONG customer is always wrong. You are the wrong customer.
I recall a story told years ago of a customer that complained about everything about Southwest airlines. After every flight, she would fire off another letter about all the things that she felt were wrong. Due to all the previous letters, the staff bumped her latest one to the CEO, Herb Kelleher. After reading her letter, he responded with the following:
Dear Mrs. XXXXXXX,
We will miss you.
Love,
Herb

Thats it. Mr. Kelleher understood that by backing down to this unruly and unpleasant customer, he was not standing up for and supporting his employees. That is a valuable lesson. My staff will tell you that I have fired customers and refused the business of people who were rude to my staff.
The phrase The customer is always right was originally coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridges department store, in London in 1909, and is typically used by businesses to:

• Convince customers that they will get good service
• Convince employees to give customers good service

Fortunately, more and more businesses are abandoning this maxim. Why? Ironically, it leads to bad customer service. The main issue with it is it means that abusive people (such as the person mentioned at the start) get better treatment and conditions than nice people. Thats just wrong. It makes much more sense to be nice to the nice customers to keep them coming back and fire the bad customers.
Put employees first and they will be happy at work. Employees who are happy at work give better customer service because:

• They care more about other people, including customers
• They have more energy
• They are happy, meaning they are more fun to talk to and interact with
• They are more motivated

On the other hand, when the company and management consistently side with customers instead of with employees, it sends a clear message that:

• Employees are not valued
• That treating employees fairly is not important
• That employees have no right to expect respect from customers
• That employees have to put up with everything from customers
• When this attitude prevails, employees stop caring about service. So put your people first. And watch them put the customers first.

But what if you dont have employees, what if it is just you running the show? Simple. Follow the above and treat yourself like the employee. Allow yourself the authority to fire an unruly customer. It will instill the same type of feelings of loyalty that an employee would feel.
And happy employees always produce more and offer better customer service.