Customers...

Is the Customer Always Right?

That is an old adage that many business owners adhere to and the mantra predicated onto those who have the luck of being the first contact with customers, be it retail or technical support.

I beg to differ though.

Having spent some time on retail at an ubiquitous electronics franchise, I have to say that of all the customers that walked in the store door, maybe 20% at most deserved the respect from the sales clerk - the rest were obnoxious worthier than thou vociferous illiterate ignorants that demanded audophile performance at a Bose level from a $14.95 AM/FM alarm clock radio, and then blamed the clerk for selling them a lemon.

Then there is the Tech Support customer.

Got a call today from a decidedly ranting woman complaining that she had bought an Internet radio and that all of the sudden there was a message on it: "not compatible with the stream" or something like that. Apparently she had talked to someone else on our support team, when I asked her to tell me to what extent she had spoken with my colleague she immediately went to a "is there anybody else that knows about this that I could talk to?". It's labor day 2011 and I am the guy in charge of the deck...

The discussion went instead into her trying real hard to find someone else to talk to as apparently I knew nothing about her problem - kind of felt my 25+ years in radio talked down to in a rather disrespectful manner, still tried to explain to her that I was alone and no one else would be in until tomorrow and as I asked what model/brand radio she had, the woman hung up leaving me talking half sentence out. She was on a short fuse and never allowed for an intelligent exchange of information that would have helped resolve the problem.

The customer is NOT always right.

Educated customers usually are, those I cater to with enthusiasm - best return business ever.
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