Some people have never worked retail and it shows.
“The customer is always right!”
No, actually most customers have no clue how this business works, and the ones that do don’t say shit like that.
Bingo.
The customer is always right!
Some of the worst managers (and coworkers, and customers) are people who take this literally and without criticism. The phrase is a handy way to express that customer service is important, and the customer should be given the benefit of the doubt whenever possible.
That’s fine. However, it does not mean that a person turns into an infallible god upon becoming the customer of a business. The only people I’ve ever seen take it 100% seriously are customers who know they’re wrong, and managers who are too lazy to do their jobs.
I never verified, but some years ago I heard someone expand on that as meaning something like “That which makes customers willing to buy is the right thing to do”. It makes sense. If a moron will buy gold plated lead, a capitalistic perspective says sell gold-plated lead. Ethically a bit fucked? Sure. But interesting nonetheless
Yeah, you’re on the right track, the full quote is “the customer is always right in matters of taste”. But like a lot of sayings (blood is thicker than water being another example), the original intent has been lost and now it means something else colloquially.
It’s interesting how often that happens. Phrases get simplified and as the nuance is lost, the meaning more or less gets reversed.
I have had multiple customers try to tell me how to do my job and every single one of them was incorrect.
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Yeah the only thing offensive about this threat is how hollow it is
Coolest thing my boss ever said was in response to the absolute worst customer I’d ever personally dealt with:
“I’m extremely sorry we failed to meet your expectations. Perhaps you’ll have better luck with one of our competitors in the future.”
Worked at a bank as a teller. Would get threatened. People would complain and then threaten to take all their money out of their accounts.
“No problem, would you like that in cheque or cash?” Was my favourite.
There was a story of this guy who called customer service to complain about TV cable quality or something, threating them to cancel the contract. They went ahead and cancelled it and he retracted, saying that they should’ve offered a price drop, but it was too late, he would have to wait for an “installer” to visit him.
I know this story… but from the other side. A friend of mine was the support agent on the other end of this scenario. Had a customer call in, go on an abusive rant, then threaten to cancel. He just cancelled them on the spot and told them the whole be a reconnect fee if he wanted to restore services.
He got in trouble for that one, but absolutely worth it.
Is that how you close an account at a retail bank? Last time I did that it required sitting down with a manager and I still had to go in twice before they actually did it.
It’s the first step, and it’s the step the customer thinks is going to have some big impact.
I used to wait tables, and one time I had one of those tables where just everything goes wrong. After it was finally all over and they left, THEY FUCKING CAME BACK TO TALK ABOUT IT SOME MORE.
That’s not how this works dude. You leave, you write a bad review, we all go on with our lives. If I was actually a bad waiter, I’d get fired soon enough, you don’t have to worry about it.
“Really? Thank you~ 💕”
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