'The Customer is Always Right'

[CuChullain]

I have seen the phrase “the customer is always right” trotted out a few times on these forums and I was wondering if some folk here honestly believe that is the case? Having worked for a number of restaurants, pubs and corporate catering companies throughout my uni years I came to the rapid conclusion that not only can customers be wrong but they can fucking rude to boot. Most service industry workers put up with a fair bit of crap as that is deemed as part of the job but I can’t see why they have to put up with outright bullying, rudeness and general obnoxious behaviour just because money is changing hands.

The one thing that riles me is when someone asks, usually with a dismissive wave, "so, is this all you do?"

Erm, no actually, but I'm not going to justify myself to someone who spends a good portion of thier day sinking pints instead of working.

I've been so tempted to ask them the very same question

:o Good point Southern at least we are earning money, not pissing it up the wall!

I work install centre and people get a sense of bravado when they're not face to face and speak outrageously to us. I've had someone treaten to come and rip me apart, and racist comments thrown at me etc etc.

Without a doubt tho the most arrogant and rude people are the 'managing directors' or CEOs who think they are above us and will instantly become rude and aggressive when they don't get what they want and will not see any other view/point other than their own. So self important it makes me sick.

Customers are not supposed to say it to anybody.
It's origin is in American businesses as a philosophy.
Businesses are supposed to say it to their employees, and it's about an attitude towards providing quality service not the specifics of dealing with an individual.

I worked for yrs in retail & we didn't have any qualms about chucking about thieves or the menacing.

I guess it's one of those things that has been stretched far beyond its intended meaning.

I'm always polite to staff, even if they're being rude & ignorant - which seems to happen a lot more nowadays.

If you're serving me, then serve me - don't have a conversation with the person on the next fecking till.

And don't call me "mate". I'm not your mate, I'm your customer.

I may not always be right, but I'm still expecting a couple of basic courtesies!

If the customer is being an arse, then deal with them professionally, escalate it & when they've gone/hung up then call them a dick. Absolutely pointless getting huffy with them as they'll count it as a victory...

I suspect were there is booze in the mix, they will be ruder.

My contact with the great general public is far more genteel these days than when I worked in the city (yes, we all have customers). We were put on an anti-vivisection mailing list because our name was similar to a company who funded labs. Our business actually advised against investing in labs (as an ethical stance). The mail that used to come in was frightening - not just return paid envelopes stuffed with very graphic viviection publications but the odd hate mail too. We kept telling them, they'd apologise and it would just continue (not a very organised bunch).

Not retail as I've never actually worked in retail, however as a teenager I did work in cafes and coffee shops and the like and I think some people are just cunts. I remember being reduced to tears as a 16 year old by one customer who had decided that her panini was too flat. She took it out on me (even though I had nothing to do with her order, I was just walking past). She ended up screaming right in my face for ages that it was "disgusting" and how she wanted a refund right now. Every time I tried to explain I'd get her a refund she interrupted me to hurl more abuse at me. In the end she threatened to "smack me one"

Seriously how hard would it have been to just ask for a refund? Was it really necessary to scream?

I have worked as a barmaid/waitress/sometime restaurant manager and a GP receptionist.
Now.
99.9% of the people I dealt with were lovely. The rest were twats. At the doctors I got threatened with violence against both myself and my children, spoken to like I was an idiot and called every name under the sun.
At the pub I was told I would never get a proper job, was worth less than them, whistled at for service and shouted at. Oh, and touched up while serving hot meals. Big mistake. Huge in fact.
In both jobs I was known to be ultra proffessional and people preferred to deal with me (I know that sounds very bigheaded)

LtColGrinch Sorry, but I think you're being unfair with regards to the 'mate' thing. About half of my customers will call me 'mate' or 'bud', or whatever. I don't use it, but I certainly don't mind it. How is someone supposed to make a judgement call on whether someone likes it or not? Some people prefer the informal approach, you can find it trying, but I don't think they're being uncourteous (discourteous? not sure)

The talking when on the till is a massive no-no though, absolutely.

If you are working for a business then you must always display calmness, reasonable patience and be pleasant and polite. This is all "the customer is always right" means...it's not literal. It means that you ACT as though they are.

Of course, 95% of my customers are great, I've made life long friends with some, but the horrible things that have been said to me, the fights, the arguments and the common or garden cunts are the ones that stick in my mind!

When I worked in a shop most people were lovely. I like to think I tried my best to help when I could also.

My pet hate back then was people who ignore your outstretched hand and put their money on the counter instead. In those cases I always placed their change on the counter too. They didn't like it, usually.

Oh and if I did have a rude customer, I'd be ultra nice. I've done that in the workplace too with rude colleagues. Eventually they give up.

I've worked in retail at the most basic, middle, and at the highest end range. If you work with the public it's always the same ... good customers and shitty ones. Weather they're spending 50p on a tin of cat food or £10000 + on shoes and a bag.

The trick to serving the public is to give them your best service always, but know how to deal with rudeness and utter ignorance and stupidity in the correct way. There's no need to ''give yourself away'' to horrible people, getting angry and flustered just brings you down and prolongs the problem. Not worth it. There is a professional way to deal with less than lovely customers and once you've learned it it's pretty easy to do. Plus the customer goes away happy :)

ArmyDad the mayo McDonald's have isn't in sachets like ketchup and other sauce. It's in a tube and is meant for certain burgers so they can't just give you it unfortunately. If they subbed mayo for everyone that wants it they'd lose too much money on it. What they need to do is start doing the sachets again, they stopped due to low demand but it seems people are wanting mayo more and more now.
Although I have to say, for the really nice customers we used to give them a little squirt of mayo in a tub. Keep asking, you'll get someone nice eventually.

YANBU - thankfully when I worked in retail I worked for people who didn't hold with rude arseholes and would stand up for her staff.

So the posh twat who thought he could click his fingers at me to get served (in a bar) was told he could go home and get his manners, and when he complained to the owner she kindly told his group that if they wanted to keep ordering drinks at her bar, they'd have to send someone with manners to go get them.

It made me a lot happier about working there, knowing that I didn't have to put up with the occassional arse.

I was just about to start a thread on this after seeing someone write it on tripadvisor it annoys me that people think that is the case

I worked in a cafe when I was 15 and one arsehole sent his egg on toast back because he had 3 eggs instead of 2. Some people just like being twats.

If a customer was ever rude to me I usually be extra nice, it annoys them.

We used to have one woman that was incredibly rude and almost wanted you to be rude back so she could get you in trouble, my friend refused to be spoken to in such a way so said customer rang HO and protested she should be entitled to vouchers?!

98.9% of customers were lovely, the others were rude and some were threatening, some were pervy.

Joys of retail.

I was wondering if some folk here honestly believe that is the case?

Of course not. The phrase doesn't really mean that.

The point is that a business needs to treat the customer as though they are right if they want to remain a business. That doesn't mean you have to put up with abuse, but it does mean you don't argue with customers and you give them the benefit of any doubt.

Some customers need arguing with tbf. Especially the ones who slip the fiver into their pocket and then try and claim you've short changed them, adamantly, right up until you point out the CCTV and ask if they'd like to check the tapes over with a local PSCO (happened more than once)

Or the ones who you know did indeed receive all of their meal, just like they did last time when they tried to con free food for themselves by claiming they only got half of their meal (you get away with this only once, we keep notes )

The customer may always have been right in the days when we had more formal manners, custom and etiquette. Nowadays the customer is just as likely to be acting out of an entitled attitude to try a complaint as a method of getting money off a bill for no good reason other than they want a "discount".

I used to run a holiday lettings business and you could spot this type a mile off. They would arrive with an agenda that became obvious on the first night, when they would call you up too late at night to visit in person, with a list of things not done "properly" or left "absolutely filthy". The next day they would follow this up and when you visited to check (knowing full well it had been cleaned by your usual cleaners to an exacting standard) announce that they had "spent all of yesterday evening cleaning". The rest of their stay would be punctuated with demands for a "discount" or "money back" (paid in advance). Even some months later, they would still have a go.

While undoubtedly you get poor customer service I find that for the majority of those cases it is more down to weak management and poor training then outright rudeness from the individual, quite often they simply don’t realise they are doing anything wrong. Quite a few of the pubs in my local area have unfortunately had the ‘gastro’ makeover and part of this seems to include the replacement of older wiser landlords and experienced staff with pretty young sprightly things who are basically not very good but I assume cheaper to employ, which seems an odd business strategy given that poor service is one of the prime reasons for customers to not return.

I also worked as an estate agent (booooo, hisssss) and that was exceptionally tough at times as joe publics perception and opinion of the profession was so low that you ended up having people you have never interacted with before treating you like shit the moment they stepped into the office. It was an odd attitude to have and I assumed most of these people would not behave that way when dealing with any other business but since estate agents are considered fair game for abuse people felt compelled to ‘have a go’ for no other reason than it being sociably acceptable. I have been screamed at down the phone because I had the audacity to ask prospective buyers why they have not shown up to an arranged viewing, apparently ‘they don’t have to explain themselves to me’ despite me have wasted an hour of my time.

I have in the past ‘stepped in’ to intervene when I have seen customers bully and demean a waitress/waiter over errors that customer has made. More often than not it is a case of someone ordering something, changing their mind, then acting an arse when the very thing they ordered gets presented to them. It does amuse me when I point out to some arsehole that he/she did actually order what has just been placed in front of them, they tend to pipe down a bit when they have been publicly called out on their behaviour. Can’t stand bullies.

It's not just restaurants and shops either. I work in Higer Education and the line that is constantly trotted out is 'I'm paying £9000 for this.....' Yeah well that still does not give you the right to be rude to me.