Nearly everyone has heard the phrase “the customer is always right.” It’s the phrase that was coined back in the 1990s, suggesting that the business and the employees should prioritize customer satisfaction above anything else. I guess we can be pretty sure that a lot of people from this list thought of this in their minds while these customers made the strange requests.
Yet, many experts are against this philosophy. After all, no one is right 100% of the time. Also, the customers believing they can’t be wrong can even lead to violence against retail workers.
An example of a case of a customer not being right is when they make an unrealistic request (this list is full of examples for it) and demand it be done even though the staff can’t do it. So, experts argue that, in cases like that, customer service workers shouldn’t feel obligated to accommodate such a request. Ideally, they should try to work it out with the customer without taking on the blame.
Instead of jumping to the “the customer is always right” idea straight away, Marjorie Adams, president/CEO of Fourlane, a financial technology consulting firm in the US, suggests several things to do when dealing with customers:
- Ensuring the customer is heard;
- Not taking their words personally;
- Retaining the focus;
- Thinking about the other staff members.
So, I guess the best advice would be to be mindful of each other, no matter if we're customers or an employee. After all, we're all just humans who make mistakes from time to time.
Have you ever witnessed a customer making an outlandish request? Or maybe you made one yourself? Share it with us in the comments, and don't forget to upvote the most entertaining request from the list!
