Thursday, March 5, 2015

The Customer is Always Right?

"The customer is always right" is a motto, slogan, or outright lie which exhorts service staff to give a high priority to customer satisfaction. It was popularised by pioneering and successful retailers such as Harry Gordon Selfridge, John Wanamaker and Marshall Field.

Harry Gordon Slfridge
They advocated that customer complaints should be treated seriously so that they should not feel cheated or deceived.


John Wanamaker





Marshall Field

This attitude was novel and influential when misrepresentation was rife and caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) was a common legal maxim.

Customer is always right or wrong?

I'm not agree with "The Customer is Always Right" because the customers can be wrong at certain time or situation. I have my experience dealing with the-complaint-customer.

I sell nasi lemak telur (coconut rice egg) at RM2.00 per packet (polisterine). The packet contains a load of nasi lemak, one sized A/AA boiled egg or fried egg (customer choice), some anchovies with nuts, a slice of cucumber and one scoop of sambal (chillies gravy). 

Nasi lemak telur RM2.00
Even with that load of nasi lemak, some of my customer complaining nasi lemak telur price RM2.00 is expensive. They pointing out many nasi lemak seller around selling nasi lemak for only RM1.50. To make it worse, they ask me to sell nasi lemak at RM1.50 like others too.

I just smile and didn't answer their complaints because I know what I'm doing. I'm using flanking marketing strategy targeting customer who afford to buy a load of delicious nasi lemak telur stuffed in one pack. Until now, I'm still selling nasi lemak telur at RM2.00 and getting more regular customers.

If I have more capital to open my own big restaurant one day, I"ll prioritize my employee more than the customer. My employees comes first because they follow my order and work hard for me so they are a valuable assets to me. Customer is important too but not as important as my employee.

The customer's right is to pay and get what they deserved. I'll defend my employee if they get abused by the customer. However, if the customer is asking their right because of my employee's mistake, I'll try to manage and settle the problem between my employee and the customer so both of them will satisfied.

I'll treat a good employee/customer with respect but I hates a bad employee/customer as it would ruin my business reputation. Anyway, I'll treat my employee better so they'll work harder to give a good service to the customer. Good employee get more good customer.

Right or wrong doesn't care what your status are. Whether you are the customer, the employer, the employee or even you are the ruler of the country, you are not always right.

Finally, do you still think the customer is always right?

References

2 comments:

  1. haha betul betul.. jgn terlalu mnggunakan slogan itu.. malah bersabarlah dgn customer :)

    ReplyDelete

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