Is the customer always right?

In customer service there are only two rules. Rule 1-the customer is always right. Rule 2-if the customer is ever wrong, re-read rule 1.

So what are we to make of the recent story of the Sainsbury’s checkout assistant who recently refused to scan a customer’s groceries because the customer would not stop talking on their mobile phone?

Is this a breach of a Rule 2?

I must admit to being really torn on this one.

But philosophically we need to ask if we get the service we deserve. And this is as true for customers as it is for the businesses that serve them.

And if we agree with this philosophical point of view how do we change the rules of the game?

I am a terrible customer always looking to find ways to improve the service I get. I work on the principle that if I accept poor service I am condemning the next customer to shoddy and inadequate service. So I have a duty to let businesses know when and if they are getting wrong and how it might be improved.

More of us as consumers ought to do this and be less British, stoical and phlegmatic about this.  In short we need to complain more.

But businesses also need to demonstrate they value excellent customer service and that they truly want to deliver a brilliant customer experience that wows and surprises their customers. Too often too many businesses see service as a cost to be delivered as cost effectively as possible. Instead see it as an investment and show how much they really care about service.

This really concerns me.

Businesses have a great tendency to say one thing when it comes to service but do something else. And people will watch more than they listen. Consistency of message is of the utmost importance.

And so if customers get the service they deserve, businesses also deliver the service they deserve.

But to earn a reputation for brilliant customer service there are some simple things businesses can learn to do that will help them wow their colleagues and their customers and show a real passion for delivering a consistently awesome customer experience.

·         Show that you really value customer service and that those who deal with customers are the real value add to the business. All businesses should only contain two types of staff-those who serve customers and those who serve those who serve the customer. So why do we have a Head Office? This highlights the hierarchy. Why not name this Customer Support Centre?

·         Demonstrate real leadership. Get senior management to spend at least one day a month dealing with customers on the front line. No excuses, no ifs, no buts. A powerful signal to all in the business that customers and those who deal with customers are important.

·         Learn to walk in the customers’ shoes. How often does your business think about the customer experience when it is re-engineering its processes and systems from the outside in? Too often this is done from the inside out. Rare is the business which seriously thinks about who its customers might be, what they want and how they might be feeling when they touch the business. Rarer still is the business that takes such insights into account when re-designing its processes. Time to start.

At the end of the day it is about having a passion for service excellence and if the business has this passion this will be shared by its people. Simples.

And where does this leave me on the issue of the Sainsbury’s checkout assistant and the phone-glued-to-the-ear customer? 

Still confused. But maybe if businesses showed they really valued customer service and those who deliver it, maybe the customer might learn to appreciate them too. It’s worth a try.