Take care of staff, they'll take care of your customers

THE CUSTOMER is always right.

 

If that expression is enough to make you cringe, read on.

 

Human relations experts are turning the tide against this longstanding management maxim, insisting instead that it is bad for the bottom line to preach to staff that the customer is always right -- especially when that customer is behaving badly, and especially when the staff person involved is young.

 

"The Gen Y person won't take rudeness from a customer. They won't take it from an employer either," said Brenda Fair, partner at Fairwinds Training and Development in Waverley.

 

She said companies following a blind "customer-is-always-right" philosophy risk losing the worker and the customer when they do not have a program for contending with cranky people.

 

"If an employee doesn't feel backed-up and valued, they will leave," she said.

 

She suggested a good way to show an employee you care is to ensure they have the training to handle unruly clients -- regardless of the field of work. She estimated 80 per cent of difficult clients can be "turned around" with the right approach.

 

Everybody who works in the retail and customer service industries has horror stories to share about unruly customers. The most entertaining (or frustrating) of these stories seem to end with the worker complaining about being undercut in the end by a manager chanting the "customer-is-always-right" mantra.

 

It is absolutely wrong to insist the customer is always right, said Alexander Kjerulf, a Danish human resources consultant and author of Happy Hour is Nine to Five.

 

"The customer-is-always-right concept has become a mantra and as a result we forget to question its validity," he said.

 

"Often customers are wrong and managers do a huge disservice to mistreated employees when supporting a rude customer," said the consultant.

 

Managers who back up unruly customers without question often do their company a disservice as well, because sometimes these unreasonable customers are bad for business in many ways.

 

"The most important relationship a business has today is not with a particular customer, but with its loyal employees," said the consultant.

 

All too often frontline staff must contend with the repercussions of the "customer-is-always-right" style that dates back to the turn of the last century.

 

These were times when volume was more important than quality when it came to customers, due to the nature of products involved.

 

The consultant said that in the high-tech context, in particular, "more customers is not always better," because some customers are so bad, even when being treated right, that they tend to cut into the bottom line.

 

For example, if a service technician dealing with a rude client is not supported in the field, the accumulated resentment can be passed along to better customers, those who are polite, who often have deeper pockets and could be more rewarding to deal with for the company and for its employees.

 

"Put your people first. And watch them put your customers first," he said.