Is the customer always right ?

Let me start by giving you a history back to this position. I read and review the article in Fast Company twitter 'You build a company to the consumer? Customer vs cultural debate continues. The essence of the article is that sometimes you have to bend to ensure that the customer is finally served. However, a little voice in my head said - at what price?

I told him and attracted some customer exchanges @tedcoine consultant - client is not always right / Rule # 1: The customer is always right. Rule # 2: If the customer is always wrong, reread Rule # 1! and there is some accountability needed to win customer service. You have to believe that the customer is always right, true or not - to whom I owe the time of this post.

I have no problem with the premise of the article, but I found many small businesses that consider this age old saying "the customer is always right" as justification isolation for taking abuse from customers suck the life.

So here is my revised and updated version of the proclamation of small business - the right customer is always right. Now this is what I mean by this. There is absolutely nothing wrong, in fact, is not quite right with the construction of a culture of making the customer happy at all times, but you can not take the form of thinking without two things firmly in place first.

1) absolutely must implement all communications in order to attract the ideal client - ideally a customer who value what you have to offer, how the securities offered, and determines that the value is a mutual exchange of these - very similar any healthy relationship. Bad relationships that come from misunderstanding and it really has to offer and maybe even with an influx of customers for the wrong reasons.

2) You need to build an experience that pleases every step - lead generation to get paid.

With these caveats in place, you can allow the customer is always right, as they have developed a culture of mutual benefit and "we will not rest until the right" policy will serve both for you long term. small businesses simply can not afford to attract the wrong kind of life stealing customer type and wait to be happy, it is an almost impossible task and is likely to be completed at the expense of your ideal clients.

So repeat after me, good customer is always right - with this mentality changes customer accountability for you.

THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT AS LONG AS YOU WANT THEIR MONEY

For some context, I grew up in a retail store where we would have 100s, and eventually 1000s, of people come through the store every day and buy product. Transaction after transaction, I heard the phrase “the customer is always right.” I also heard it on the news and television and who the heck knows where else. Oddly, it’s a motto that my dad never imposed on me, but I slowly understood what it meant and it’s something that I’ve always believed in. It was a mantra that became the backbone for Wine Library’s growth.

Even when I had a customer who was irrational, unprofitable, or downright emotionally difficult, there was something that was inside of my gut, my DNA, that never allowed me to waiver from “the customer is always right.” It’s an attitude that I practiced and it’s a belief that I thought was pretty commonplace in the sales world.

Over the last few years growing Vaynermedia, I have observed a behavior that has really taken me aback. I have seen it with some of my employees (luckily only a few), many of our other agency partners, platform partners, representatives from the Facebooks and Twitters of the world, television media buyers, and really the entire ecosystem of the agencies that service the biggest brands; there is an enormous amount of complaining about the customer. These complaints about the client range from “unfair deadlines,” to “too many requests,” to “emotional swings,” to “always changing their minds.” And those are just a few.

I find this fascinating because as a client service provider, whether you’re the 600+ digital agency with Fortune 500 clients or selling a bottle of wine to a local customer, you are more than welcome and more than capable of firing your customer. Yes, firing.

What I mean by this is that the customer is always right as long as you expect and want their money. If you don’t care about their money or their business, then the customer can absolutely be wrong. For example, I’ve fired clients when it’s negatively affected the people who are my “family” (my company) that I value more than the client itself.

But, if you’re asking someone to pay you money that you want, they have the right to put demands on your time and resources and have you pander to them. On the other hand, you’re more than welcome to not accept those terms. But, accepting those terms and then crying about it has become a massive vulnerability in the B2B space.