I confess I can be a difficult customer. I do not suffer stupidity/lying/ignorance/illogic/laziness kindly. I lump all those things together because it is difficult to tell sometimes whether a person is intentionally being deceitful, has herself been deceived, lacks knowledge, lacks critical thinking skills or is simply trying to save themselves work.
Regardless of which it is, the result is the same, a poor customer experience for me and since I tend to be a bit of a right-fighter, I sometimes find it difficult to walk away. I don’t know why, but it just drives me crazy when people are obviously wrong about something, but refuse to accept it.
I am also very particular. Just an example, I like my Tim Hortons Iced Capp blended twice. I have had many reactions to that request. One Timmies employee at the Toronto airport even rolled her eyes at me.
Another one tried to tell me it makes no difference. I actually prefer contempt and compliance over this attempt to avoid compliance, but the fact remains, it does make a difference. It makes it smoother and prevents you from ending up with a quarter cup of flavourless ice at the end. That is only logical, but I’ve gone further; I’ve actually tested it.
I get it, when it is busy (and when is it not at Tim Hortons), special requests can be a pain in the butt. It takes more time to blend an Iced Capp twice and if you’re under the impression, mistaken as may be, that it doesn’t make a difference, or you’re just being lazy, then I am admittedly a difficult customer.
Even if I was wrong (I am not), the customer is always right, right?
That business axiom is ostensibly attributed to British retailer Harry Gordon Selfridge. It was a marketing slogan to convince customers that, no matter what, they were going to get good customer service. It implies that even when the customer is wrong, she is right.
But what if the customer is wrong? Not like someone with an annoying predilection for twice-blended Iced Capps when you’re busy wrong, but really wrong?
There is growing evidence the “always right” policy is usually wrong.
In an excellent summary of some of the literature on the subject, consultant Alexander Kjerulf tells this story about Southwest Airlines:
“One woman who frequently flew on Southwest was constantly disappointed with every aspect of the company’s operation,” Kjerulf wrote. “In fact, she became known as the ‘Pen Pal’ because after every flight she wrote in with a complaint.
“She didn’t like the fact that the company didn’t assign seats; she didn’t like the absence of a first-class section; she didn’t like not having a meal in flight; she didn’t like Southwest’s boarding procedure; she didn’t like the flight attendants’ sporty uniforms and the casual atmosphere.
“Her last letter, reciting a litany of complaints, momentarily stumped Southwest’s customer relations people. They bumped it up to Herb’s [Kelleher, CEO of Southwest at the time] desk, with a note: ‘This one’s yours.’
“In sixty seconds, Kelleher wrote back and said, ‘Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you. Love, Herb’.”
This is amusing because all the things this customer didn’t like is what makes Southwest Southwest. The “no frills” experience is the company’s business model.
The story nicely illustrates that some customer just are not worth having.
It mostly boils down to resentment.
If a business is constantly putting bad customers ahead of good employees, what does that say about the value of the employees? How does it make them feel? Resentful employees do not generally give great customer service. Turn that table though, stick up for your employees, and see what kind of service they give your other customers.
And what about those other customers? What are they likely to think when they see a bad customer getting preferential treatment? It is the old squeaky wheel syndrome. The other wheels are bound not to like it.
There is another axiom that works in pretty much every situation, for business people, employees and customers alike. It probably wouldn’t make a great marketing slogan, but it definitely has the potential to reduce conflict.
Be kind to one another. I try (not always wholly successfully) to keep it in mind when I start feeling like being a difficult customer.
