Comments
Is the Customer Always Right?
How far do you take your devotion to customers? Quite recently, after James was getting a little bit of a hard time during a project from a customer, I started to wonder where you draw the line between accepting that customers sometimes take their bad days out on you and when that is not ok.
It’s like the post I wrote recently about Trademe (which was in no way a criticism of Trademe itself, more human nature), we leap to anger and accusation before giving the benefit of the doubt, we assume the other guy is out to get us.
This morning I felt that another customer crossed the line and I snapped and for the first time told a customer that I did not appreciate his attitude and we would like an apology. I feel strangely guilty, like I have broken the law of customer relationship management.
Maybe it is a sign of the times.
Hello, my name is Natalie, I have a business called 
July 11th, 2007 at 2:08 am
The key word is “relationship”. A relationship should be based on respect — and too often clients don’t have any respect for the agencies or people who work for them. Good for you!
July 11th, 2007 at 6:23 am
Semi-related – It was interesting to see Sprint dumping customers who called support too often (20+ times per month). On one hand, you could argue that they cost a lot of money directly. On the other side, dumping them is a bad PR move and they’ll rant and rave to their friends about an awful attitude. But if they’re calling support 20 times a month chances are they’re not that happy anyway.
July 11th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Well we all know that customers aren’t always right, just like the agency isn’t always right. Nobody is always right.
With that out of the way the question is about how to deal with situations.
Sometimes people have a bad day and we get some undeserved negative energy as a result. That happens in all relationships, both business and personal.
If the relationship is valuable to you, you overlook those moments with understanding – realizing that you have some bad days too.
If boundaries are crossed between “bad day” and “abusive” then it is no longer acceptable. It is best to avoid letting things continue to the “snapping” point. Explain that the abusive behavior is simply not acceptable and that you expect it to either stop immediately or the relationship will have to end.
I’m probably over simplifying things, but that’s it in a nut-shell.