It sounds like your managing director (MD) was definitely guilty of feeding the bears. This is a great example of how these customers and policies affect the morale of your workforce. I've seen managers that thought nothing of losing a great employee, that they had spent thousands of dollars and years training, to save a $20 sale.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Brad

I was a customer service department manager more than 15 years ago in what is now a global mobile communications company.

A huge portion of my time was spent defending people in my department from the MD who received complaint letters from customers and immediately assumed one of my people had screwed up.

He thought nothing of threatening the individuals concerned, which was despicable behaviour in itself – corporate bullying at its worst.

Although they were my team (so some may consider me biased!) the supervisors and team leaders who reported to me were incredibly dedicated to their job but after a year or so of this MD most of them were nervous wrecks.

I eventually left after the MD stormed into my office one day, slamming the door so hard that the windows shook, and screamed at me for about 10 minutes about my performance and the performance of my team.

I handed in my notice the next day with my only regret being that the team wouldn't have protection going forward. But by then it was affecting my health – definitely time to get out.

I had a small smidgeon of satisfaction when the MD tried once or twice to persuade me to stay, which I naturally refused.

I'm not sure what happened after I left, but the customer is most definitely not always right.

However, when they (the customer) find a manager (at whatever level) who believes they are, and who takes the customer's word over the customer service staff's (even when everything is tracked by the system), they are given incredible emotional power – which is a recipe for disaster.

Martin.

I am probably guilty of focusing too much on the service industry when I think of the small business customer. This certainly has the potential to be more of a problem with the service industry, or maybe it is just easier to fix in the service industry?

Let's face it. As a whole, teenagers and young adults entering the workforce over the past two decades have had less and less of the traditional work ethic and customer service mentality than generations before them. That's not to say that there are none, but it is becoming a rarity.

The sad thing is that our customers are also becoming less honest, less patient, and more litigious. It's not the best combination of factors to tell our employees that the customer is not always right. So what do we do?

You probably have a few customers that come to mind (if you don't then your employees do) that when they come into your grocery store you just know there is going to be something they find that they do not like. Why? Because it is the same every trip.

They are not abusive to your employees, but perhaps they constantly complain in the check out line because there is a line, always have a product that mysteriously appeared under a sale sign five aisles over, or tell anyone that will listen how expensive your prices are. I've often wanted to tell the person in the check out line with me to “chill out” or more honestly “shut up.”

There is an impact on your employee's morale, and the morale of other customers, from these people. When my wife shops at Wal-mart, she rarely complains about the employees, but it is the other shoppers that irritates her every shopping trip. I can only imagine how the employees feel.

I think there are a few questions we have to ask ourselves. Are these the customers that you intend to attract? Why are you attracting them? What impact on morale do I send to my employees by saying that these customers too are always right? On my other customers? What would be the impact if I asked this customer not to come back?

I have not worked retail since I put myself through college so I do not have that day-to-day experience with it anymore. Maybe I am being too theoretical in my approach? Perhaps these types of customers are now the norm instead of the exception? I can tell you from my personal shopping experience that this seems to be true.

What do you think Michael?

Brad

I, for one, and not willing to give up the “generalization” that, “The customer is always right”

Michael