One
woman who frequently flew on Southwest was constantly disappointed with
every aspect of the company’s operation. In fact, she became known as
the “Pen Pal” because after every flight she wrote in with a complaint.
She didn’t like
the fact that the company didn’t assign seats; she didn’t like the
absence of a first-class section; she didn’t like not having a meal in
flight; she didn’t like Southwest’s boarding procedure; she didn’t like
the flight attendants’ sporty uniforms and the casual atmosphere.
Her last
letter, reciting a litany of complaints, momentarily stumped Southwest’s
customer relations people. They bumped it up to Herb’s [Kelleher, CEO
of Southwest at the time] desk, with a note: ‘This one’s yours.’
In sixty seconds Kelleher wrote back and said, ‘Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you. Love, Herb.’”
The phrase “The
customer is always right” was originally coined in 1909 by Harry Gordon
Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge’s department store in London, and
is typically used by businesses to convince customers that they will get
good service at this company and convince employees to give customers good service.
However, I think businesses should abandon this phrase once and for
all — ironically, because it leads to worse customer service.
Here are the top five reasons why “The Customer Is Always Right” is wrong.
1: It Makes Employees Unhappy
Gordon Bethune
is a brash Texan (as is Herb Kelleher, coincidentally) who is best known
for turning Continental Airlines around “From Worst to First,” a story
told in his book of the same title from 1998. He wanted to make sure
that both customers and employees liked the way Continental treated
them, so he made it very clear that the maxim “the customer is always
right” didn’t hold sway at Continental.
In conflicts between employees and unruly customers he would consistently side with his people. Here’s how he put it:
When we run
into customers that we can’t reel back in, our loyalty is with our
employees. They have to put up with this stuff every day. Just because
you buy a ticket does not give you the right to abuse our employees ...
We run more
than 3 million people through our books every month. One or two of those
people are going to be unreasonable, demanding jerks. When it’s a
choice between supporting your employees, who work with you every day
and make your product what it is, or some irate jerk who demands a free
ticket to Paris because you ran out of peanuts, whose side are you going
to be on?
You can’t treat
your employees like serfs. You have to value them ... If they think
that you won’t support them when a customer is out of line, even the
smallest problem can cause resentment.
So Bethune
trusted his people over unreasonable customers. What I like about this
attitude is that it balances employees and customers. The “always right”
maxim squarely favors the customer which is a bad idea, because, as
Bethune says, it causes resentment among employees.
Of course,
there are plenty of examples of bad employees giving lousy customer
service but trying to solve this by declaring the customer “always
right” is counter-productive.
2: It Gives Abrasive Customers an Unfair Advantage
Using the
slogan “The customer is always right,” abusive customers can demand just
about anything — they’re right by definition, aren’t they? This makes
the employees’ jobs that much harder when trying to rein them in.
Also, it means
that abusive people get better treatment and conditions than nice
people. That always seemed wrong to me, and it makes much more sense to
be nice to the nice customers to keep them coming back.
3: Some Customers Are Bad for Business
Most businesses think that “the more customers the better”. But some customers are quite simply bad for business.
Danish IT service provider ServiceGruppen proudly tell this story:
One of our
service technicians arrived at a customer’s site for a maintenance task,
and to his great shock was treated very rudely by the customer.
When he’d
finished the task and returned to the office, he told management about
his experience. They promptly cancelled the customer’s contract.
Just like
Kelleher dismissed the irate lady who kept complaining (but somehow also
kept flying on Southwest), ServiceGruppen fired a bad customer. Note
that it was not even a matter of a financial calculation — not a
question of whether either company would make or lose money on that
customer in the long run. It was a simple matter of respect and dignity
and of treating their employees right.
4: It Results in Worse Customer Service
Rosenbluth
International, a corporate travel agency since bought by American
Express, took it even further. CEO Hal Rosenbluth wrote an excellent
book about their approach called Put The Customer Second - Put your people first and watch’em kick butt.
Rosenbluth
argues that when you put the employees first, they put the customers
first. 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
- Treating employees fairly is not important
- Employees have no right to respect from customers
- Employees have to put up with everything from customers
When this
attitude prevails, employees stop caring about service. At that point,
genuinely good service is almost impossible — the best customers can
hope for is fake good service. You know the kind I mean: courteous on
the surface only.
5: Some Customers Are Just Plain Wrong
Herb Kelleher agrees, as this passage From Nuts! the excellent book about Southwest Airlines shows:
Herb Kelleher
[...] makes it clear that his employees come first — even if it means
dismissing customers. But aren’t customers always right? “No, they are
not,” Kelleher snaps. “And I think that’s one of the biggest betrayals
of employees a boss can possibly commit. The customer is sometimes
wrong. We don’t carry those sorts of customers. We write to them and
say, ‘Fly somebody else. Don’t abuse our people.’”
If you still think that the customer is always right, read this story from Bethune’s book
From Worst to First:
A
Continental flight attendant once was offended by a passenger’s child
wearing a hat with Nazi and KKK emblems on it. It was pretty offensive
stuff, so the attendant went to the kid’s father and asked him to put
away the hat. “No,” the guy said. “My kid can wear what he wants, and I
don’t care who likes it.”
The flight
attendant went into the cockpit and got the first officer, who explained
to the passenger the FAA regulation that makes it a crime to interfere
with the duties of a crew member. The hat was causing other passengers
and the crew discomfort, and that interfered with the flight attendant’s
duties. The guy better put away the hat.
He did, but he
didn’t like it. He wrote many nasty letters. We made every effort to
explain our policy and the federal air regulations, but he wasn’t
hearing it. He even showed up in our executive suite to discuss the
matter with me. I let him sit out there. I didn’t want to see him and I
didn’t want to listen to him. He bought a ticket on our airplane, and
that means we’ll take him where he wants to go. But if he’s going to be
rude and offensive, he’s welcome to fly another airline.
The fact is
that some customers are just plain wrong, that businesses are better of
without them, and that managers siding with unreasonable customers over
employees is a very bad idea, that results in worse customer service.
So any business needs to put its people first — and watch them put the customers first.
Written by Alexander Kjerulf
Alexander is the founder and Chief Happiness Officer of Woohoo inc and
one of the world’s leading experts on happiness at work. He is an author
and speaker, presenting and conducting workshops on happiness at work
at businesses and conferences in over 30 countries. His clients include
companies like Hilton, Microsoft, LEGO, IKEA, Shell, HP and IBM.
Alex has a masters degree in computer science from The University of
Southern Denmark, and was a co-founder of the Danish IT company
Enterprise Systems.
Alex is the author of 4 books including the international bestseller
Happy Hour is 9 to 5 – How to Love Your Job, Love Your Life and Kick
Butt at Work. The book has been extremely well received all over the
world and is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish,
Vietnamese, Farsi, Indonesian and Chinese.
His work has been featured in CNN, New York Times, Times of India, The
Times, BBC, Financial Times and many others.
And in case your wondering, his last name (Kjerulf) is pronounced a
little like care-oolf.
