How ‘the customer is always right’ can make things worse

‘The customer is always right’. It’s a saying that I very much would like to believe, it’s something that I feel I have to live by, but every bone in my body tells me it’s wrong. As a matter of fact, it can even make things worse.

dog_aggression Ever since shopping needs shifted from ‘necessity’ to ‘pleasure’ companies have tried to pleasure customers so they would come over more often or use their service more frequently. ‘The customer is always right’ is a simple phrase that means ‘whatever customer you have… do everything to keep him’.

But what happens when you keep doing this and create expectations you can never keep towards your customers? When you allow one mishap slip through because you want to keep a customer you’d rather lose, won’t it make things worse? From the customer’s point of view, his expectations were just bumped up a notch because the company allowed it. They made it harder for themselves, nest time he comes over to please him.

And what else is there to do? Do we have to ignore customers with complaints, special demands,…? Or do we simply have to cut our losses at one time? Is it possible to downgrade customer’s expectations? Probably not, if I’m used to a certain level of service, it’s hard to convince me otherwise if it’s not possible anymore. Companies try so hard of building personal relations with their customers that maybe in there lies the problem? If you treat everyone like he’s unique to the company you can get two kinds of customers:
· The world’s best customer. He’s the one you want, who spends a lot of money, thinks you’re the greatest company in the world and hardly ever complains.
· The world’s worst customer. He’s the one that got used to the service too easy. In the past he tried something out to his benefit, it worked and now he’s demanding more and more of you company. He gradually became the world’s worst customer.

So maybe the definition of company/customer satisfaction is the absence of problems and not the presence of happiness?

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