By Nimroth Gwetsa, 25 November 2014
Hellopeter.com and other mainstream media are littered with customer complaints about bad service from big companies. Today’s customer is more empowered than yesterday’s. Their connectivity to people across the globe and use of social media increase the power of today’s customer.
Is it the case of service levels deteriorating from previous highs, or are companies not keeping up with increasing sophistication of today’s customer? Are customers abusing their “power” by making unreasonable demands on companies?
Despite answers to these questions, Is the Customer Always Right?
Reasons for poor services levels could be attributed to many factors. They are not only limited to what companies do or are not doing or have not done. Customers too, misbehave sometimes. Customers misbehave when they fail to raise concerns first with their service providers but rush to vent their dissatisfaction on publicly accessible media platforms. They also misbehave when they fail to patiently wait for service providers to systematically solve the problem.
Sometimes companies are to blame for customers’ dissatisfaction with services provided. Poor communication by the service provider is often at the root of escalated customer complaints. Click here for more on the impact of poor communication on customer services levels. Click here also to read about how companies could generate new revenue from leveraging their current offerings.
How far is the statement “The customer is always right” correct? Some regard the statement to be true always. They argue that companies have increased responsibility to ensure satisfaction of customers in their use or consumption of products and services provided. Others think the statement is true only situationally.
PARODY OF DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW OF THE “CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT”
| OPTIMIST: “Of Course, The customer IS ALWAYS right!” | PESSIMIST: “Over My Dead Body! The customer IS NEVER right.” |
| REALIST: “Yep, what can we say! That’s a CUSTOMER, alright.” | IDEALIST: “One day, the customer’s buying power will ignite socio-political activism required to change the world order and end war” |
| CAPITALIST: “If I create a DATABASE of customer records, link it to the Internet of Things and give it a sexy name, I could make a fortune!” | COMMUNIST: “Customer information belongs to every single one of us in equal measure!” |
| CONSPIRACIST: “The ‘KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER’ government regulations are big-brother’s way of invading our privacy!” | SEXIST: “The customer isn’t going to serve himself or is he, sweetie-pie!” |
| NIHILIST: “The customer DOES NOT EXIST and neither do I” | OPPORTUNIST: “There’s a funny T-shirt in here somewhere!” |
Perhaps the answer lies in the decomposition of this expression in its individual words.
The
“The” is a definite article.
We are thus not referring to any ordinary customer, but that specific customer. The customer, who not only is in company records, but is also a person.
Not everyone can be the company’s customer. And the company’s product cannot solve all problems customers have. Every effort costs the company some resources. Trying to please everyone because the company cannot “turn away money” is costly.
Customer service levels could be improved when companies avoid selling products and services customers are unconvinced about their efficacy or would not solve problems experienced.
Customer
“Customer” is “a person who buys or a person with whom one has dealings[1]”.
A buyer is not only a person with resources to buy the company’s products and services. A buyer is also a person with needs thought could be resolved through the consumption of the company’s products and services. The definition thus covers existing, past and potential customers.
Every business needs to invest in knowing their customers. Non-exhaustive examples of information companies should gather include knowing:
- Who current and potential customers are;
- What customers’ current and potential purchases are;
- What the reasons are for customers’ purchases;
- What problems customers can solve using the company’s products and services;
- How customers experience using the company’s products and services;
- What the concerns and suggestions for improvement are that customers have raised with the company on its products and services.
Is
“Is” denotes a state of being or existence.
Reality about actual concerns customers have raised with the company counts more than perceptions of their concerns. It pays for companies to listen to customers fully explaining their challenges and needs without interruption. Companies should not only observe customers’ behaviour and becoming presumptuous about their concerns and needs. They should provide solutions customers independently consider suitable for resolving their problems. Customers should not make purchases based on the suaveness of the company’s effort in generating revenue.
Misplaced concern about reaching sales revenue targets could result in companies failing to focus on actual needs of customers and the adequacy of the company’s products in resolving their problems. Consequences of such failure could increase customers’ dissatisfaction levels with the company’s products and services.
We hear people often say, “it’s better to under promise and over deliver than overpromise and under deliver”. Better for a company to undersell its capabilities and overwhelm customers by providing superior service throughout their engagement, than oversell capabilities and disappoint afterwards in services provided.
Companies should be honest about the adequacy of their offerings and problems their solutions would not resolve. Customers should be allowed to apply their minds sufficiently without being placed under duress. Companies would be served better by having happy customers than begrudging ones. Companies are likely to have happy customers if those customers were not hoodwinked into buying the company’s products and services.
Investing in the improvement of company services and customer support directly improves satisfaction of customers in their use of the company’s products and services. Companies in such situation would not dread dealing with customer complaints.
Avoid being seen as a company that has adopted “fly-by-night” sales tactics and bullying in squashing complaints raised by customers.
Always
“Always” means all the time, without exception.
While the customer experiences the problem or symptoms of the problem, the customer will always need a solution to resolve that problem. However strongly a company feels about its products and services, if the customer cannot resolve problems using the company’s offerings, the customer has not been provided an effective solution. Unresolved customer problems would unsettle customers and companies should expect to receive increased complaints about their offerings.
Sometimes poor use of the company’s offerings is the reason for continued complaints from customers about the company’s products and services. Such could be resolved through training.
A solution is not just about providing a product. It entails providing a service having regard to the customer’s experience throughout the engagement and their acceptance of the suitability of the solution in resolving problems.
Right
“Right” as an adjective means “in accordance with what is good, proper or just[2]”.
Spending time investigating where blame needs to be apportioned would not resolve the customer’s problem. These are actions taken once the problem has been resolved. Such actions should not be about witch-hunting, but about identifying causes of problems and underlying solutions to prevent recurrence of issues.
A solution is a mutually agreed-upon answer to a recognised problem[3]. The company’s opinion is not the only important thing. The customer’s opinion counts and requires finding mutually acceptable remedies to the problem. Fostering such harmony in the company would be difficult unless the culture and behaviour of employees in the company is reviewed.
Companies renowned for their excellent customer service have sales and support employees knowledgeable in the company’s products and services. They do not sell offerings they do not understand. Employees are well-trained in technical aspects of the company’s offerings, solution selling and customer service management practices. Employees work in teams acknowledging and owning up on issues. They avoid apportioning blame to other teams in a bid to redeem themselves before customers. They review their performance over time and share lessons learned. They help identify next improvements required.
Reasonable customers would not be complaining about companies if they were not experiencing any problems. The mere existence of a problem affecting their lives means there is an opportunity for the company to provide a service to the customer. Problems reported to companies give them opportunities to secure their next sale. This is the scenario where companies should avoid “turning away money” because recurrence of unresolved problems would cause customers to walk away from the company.
Conclusion
“Is the Customer Always Right”?
Companies are in business to resolve problems human beings are concerned about. They do so by providing relevant solutions customers are willing to buy. Companies concerned mainly with earning more income without focusing on the needs of customers risk losing getting repeat business from customers, much less alienating potential new ones.
Service excellence includes among others, solving the right customer problems by providing the right products and services honestly, and at the right time, location and price. This means disclosing to customers problems the company’s products and services would not help resolve. This means offering additional options to provide temporary relief to customers provided they are willing to pay for them. But even in such cases, companies should honestly disclose residual issues customers are likely to experience should they opt to buy alternative solutions.
If the company disagrees that the “Customer Is Always Right”, that company is indirectly telling the customer, they no longer appreciate their business. Even if the company thinks the customer is wrong, and in a way asserting “The customer Is Not Always Right”, it is best practice they interact with the customer to reach a mutually acceptable outcome. To achieve that, companies might need to offer discounts on customer’s next purchases, or give other remedial options to customers as counter-offers.
Spending resources on improving quality of products and services would be a worthy investment for companies.
Not every buying person can be called a customer. Customers referred to in this article are not people trying to defraud a company. They do not abuse resources and later try to get the company to compensate them for losses suffered. Such people are not customers, but criminals. This article does not refer to such people. It refers to honest people who buy from the company and the company has honest dealings with them.
Then, yes, “The Customer Is Always Right”!
[1] British Dictionary
[2] Dictionary.com
[3] Keith M. Eades: The New Solution Selling.
