I won’t reveal my name, but I am a customer and may very well be or have been a customer of yours. I want to tell all of you business owners and entrepreneurs that I am always right. If you don’t agree, many more customers just like me will agree to leave you for your competition.
While I can be demanding, rude, and unreasonable at times, you have taken my money for either a service you promised or some kind of merchandise. Simply stated – what you sold me has not met my expectations.
I may stomp my feet in frustration, yell at your service representative, and act in an unprofessional manner, but if you don’t want me to do business with you again, and if you don’t bend over backwards to fix what’s wrong or try to calm me down by listening to me, I will leave your business and take my friends, co-workers, and family with me. Surely that will be a lot less customers for you to deal with in the future.
You see, my frustrations come from poor customer service. I have issues with owners who never come out of their offices to speak with me when my day is ruined by a faulty product or lousy service. I take it personally when a customer service representative tells me that he will put me “on hold” for a few moments, and I’m still on hold some ten minutes later. I take exception being referred to another department again and again without any resolution.
For the most part I just want value for my money that you have taken from me. Maybe you can relate to the time I purchased a pair of running shoes from the store, and only tried on the left shoe for the fit. When I got to the park, I found I had two left sneakers; the store clerk didn’t notice on check-out? Bad went to worse when I tried to return the two left shoes the next day, and the customer service representative told me it was a final sale, and it was my responsibility to make sure I had the correct shoes.
Perhaps you restaurant owners can relate to sitting at a table when the server comes over, pours four glasses of water, spills one and hands me the towel to wipe the table. The server said she would be right back with our order.
Does it make you wonder how angry you would get if you ordered furniture months and months in advance to be sure it would arrive in plenty of time for a gala Christmas party I had planned for months in my home, and even ten weeks later than promised the furniture was never delivered, nor did anyone from your store ever bother to notify me? Think about my 40 guests roaming around in a beautiful new home decorated to the “nines” for a holiday party with no furniture other than rented chairs?
I really have to adamantly disagree when you, the company owner or service provider tells me that the customer is not always right. When your business decreases and you start wondering why your customers have left, remember consumers like me and how we feel. Maybe I should tell the world or write about it on a blog?
photo credit: TheeErin
Yes my dear, I have to disagree with you. The customer is not always right. As a restaurant-nightclub hostess I can tell you that. Everyday I have to go thru situations like this: Tables are reserved for a special event or customer then someone comes and sit there, when I come over and remain them of the sign placed on the table because it’s reserved they said that it is for them, rudely start giving me their drinks orders. I explain the table was prepaid, I give them the options that we have for them (like another table or the bar) but they want to stay there no matter what. I get the manager and they yell at both of us. They say the customer is always right. Again when they were informed of the limited time that they will have on the table (one or two hours) they agree and sit, later when we try to close the tab because we need the table at the specified time they say they will not leave, then argue with us and finally say they are not paying the bill because we kicking them out of the table. Again the same argument and we lost. And I have so many stories like this ones. The customer IS NOT ALWAYS RIGHT!