Is the Customer Always Right?
Is the Customer Always Right?
‘The customer is always right’ is an oft-repeated maxim. But is it right? The idea has been around for a long time – it was popularised by American retail magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge in the early 1900s. Organisations do have to be keenly aware of the needs of their customers. But it is their consistent needs expressed as a group that are important. The attitudes, behaviours and propensity to complain or praise of individual customers are widely variable. Accepting a complaint that is clearly wrong or vexatious can have seriously negative consequences. Dealing with difficult customers can be a demanding and frustrating task for staff which consumes an undue amount of time. If managers side with this type of customer, relationships with staff are likely to be damaged. The retention of quality employees providing good customer service is a central success factor for organisations. Company culture plays a major role in keeping employees loyal and productive. Customer service is at its best when employees are empowered to deliver it with freedom and discretion. But this has also to include the power politely to explain why a complaint is not valid.
Of course customer feedback can be very valuable. There is truth in the belief that in the past some senior leaders in public services have been strangers to the need for feedback from service users.
Formal exercises for its collection need to be carefully designed if the results are to be meaningful and free of distortions from organisational politics. Questions need to be open and balanced. Responses need to be collected in an objective and accurate manner. Whilst the observation of repeated messages in customer feedback has the most pertinence, individual pieces of feedback can occasionally strike a chord and form a basis for improvement actions.
The development of a customer-focussed culture is often associated with transformation programmes in public services when organisations wish to adopt a more businesslike and commercial approach. The establishment of ‘customer-related’ job roles and feedback mechanisms may be part of these programmes. But the danger of ‘culture cranks’ needs to be avoided – individuals who believe that personal kudos is strongly associated with the promulgation of the new culture and who for example may be prepared to use any negative customer feedback, even when unjustified, to further their own agendas. It is the responsibility of leaders to develop a balanced culture in which excesses of zeal do not have negative consequences. Used appropriately, customer feedback can support and develop operational excellence, not detract from it.
When a complaint is valid, the response needs to be quick and meet or go beyond what the customer might expect. Some customer theorists have suggested that to have a complaint and deal with it well is more beneficial to an organisation than not having had the complaint in the first place. This is a risky belief but is deserving of some credit for the recognition that exceeding customer expectations can be of real value.
Read more in the book Targets and Terror by William Barclay. Available from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Targets-Terror-Englands-Management-Revolution/dp/1916035388