The Customer is Always Right - At Least, She Used to Be

Back in the day -really BACK in the day, when customer and merchant were always face2face - retailers had a saying. It went something like this, "The customer is always right."

Whatever happened to that saying? Why isn't the customer always right, anymore? If this User-Generated, Social Media, Twittery world we live in ISN'T driven by the customer, then...what is it driven by?

For instance - my Dad was recently hospitalized. I did not get down to Wilson Memorial Hospital until after he was admitted, but I was there for several days following. I sat by his side, with my Mom and sisters, and other family members who came by, and we worried and fretted and attended to him as best we could. He ended up having surgery and being taken into ICU.

At one point, just before his surgery, his fluid bag emptied, causing an alarm to sound. No one came to investigate this sound. After a few minutes, we pushed the nurse's call button. Now, I have a bit of a history in working at hospitals, so I knew it wasn't a life-threatening issue, else we would have hurried out to get a nurse. Since it wasn't life-threatening, I thought it best to allow the hospital professionals handle it. However, the continued beeping was very disturbing...to all of us, certainly to my Dad.

Finally, I went out and asked a nurse if she could check his fluid bag. Apparently, the person I spoke to was a nursing assistant - not a nurse. She looked at the machine and the bag, said, "His bag is empty."

I refrained from replying with a big, "Duh!"

Then, she told us - without ever making eye contact - that she would get a nurse. SHE could not do anything. Even shut the machine off. And so, we sat there...for another ten minutes, listening to this machine beep, waiting for a nurse to come.

Personally, I found that appalling. The nurses did not seem all that busy to me. SOMEONE could have merely stepped in, turned the machine off, and let us know she would be back with a new bag of fluids in a few moments.

This is just one incident in the last few weeks, that has left me wondering whatever happened to "the customer is always right." Back in the day, customer service was exactly that: customer service. Retailers, merchants, anyone selling services - including hospital personnel - were well aware of the customers' options: to go elsewhere.

Have we abandoned that belief that customers can take their business to a competitor because...we don't care? It seems as if many of us don't care. Banks pretend to care, then sock you with high interest rates. Grocery stores pretend to care, but the surly cashiers leave a different impression (at least on me). Phone companies pretend to care - until you have a problem, and then they disappear into the ozone, never to be seen again.

Is it because so much is done online that it doesn't matter? Is it because...in certain settings... the customer doesn't have a choice and therefore, customer service doesn't matter? (in a hospital, when you enter via the emergency room, you truly are at the staff's mercy - it seems to me that the staff, having chosen to be nurses and doctors, could be more responsive and considerate).

Let me end with this note - after surgery, my Dad was in ICU and received excellent care and attention. The nurses and assistants and everyone we talked with actually listened and seemed to care not only about my Dad, but about the whole family. At one point, they brought my Mom dinner - because they noticed she had not left my Dad's side all day.

While I am willing to concede that sometimes emergency rooms are overcrowded and the staff overworked, in this case, I feel the professionals charged with my Dad's care before he had surgery had abandoned their training (one hopes they were trained to respond to patients with care and attention). They appeared to be jaded to the point of boredom. Not a pleasant way to attend to sick people.

How do you view your customers? Are your customers always right? When dealing with women customers...I can tell you that they are grading you ever step of the way. Because they want to share - the good news and the bad. Studies may show that we pass along the criticism far more often than the praise - but, in my real world examples, women dearly want to pass along praise, not criticism. We want to find the best in our situation, and if you're the best, we want the world to know it.

Yes, the customer is still always right. Even when she is being unreasonable. Even when she has made a mistake. Tending to her issues is the best way to create a sincere, positive relationship that will bring in referrals. Remember that a smile goes a long way, even on the phone.   

Comments

[Purushyottam Ghosh]

Banks and phone companies are certainly bad as far as customer service is concerned, at least as far as my experience goes. But the worst are internet-based retailers (the bigwigs like Amazon and Google would seldom reply to your emails). Right now I feel the general notion among retailers and other business houses is that "the customer is always wrong". :(

[Chuck Simmins]

During my wife's last multi hour trip to the emergency department at our local level one trauma center, the heart monitor on the next patient alarmed for over a half hour more than once. I finally turned the alarm off on the monitor, knowing full well that the device was also monitored from the nurse's station.

Sometime later, when the nurse came in, she threatened to have me arrested.

I tried to point out the uselessness of an alarm that no one responds to, and that the patient was still being monitored from the nurse's station and their alarms worked.

I am a 14 yr EMT and I put no one at risk. The hospital, by allowing alarms to go unanswered, does.

[Yvonne DiVita]

@Jesse - so glad you pointed out that the customer is not always right. I heartily agree. However, if we, as business owners, adopt the belief that the customer SHOULD always be right, and if we approach our customers with that mindset, I think we will avoid a lot of issues. You point that out well by saying it's a good outlook to have...for compassionate customer service. Very nice! Thanks.

@Peter - Hospitals should NOT be that way, should they? The nurses and such CHOSE to be there - why, then, do they do such a poor job? I do not want to lump them all into one category - there are many devoted medical professionals - but, really now... in a hospital, the epitome of excellent care should be the order of the day.

Why isn't it?

[Peter E Townshend]

So very right...The health care industry is based on the theory of we'll get to you when we have the chance. When my son was born, he was ignored after 24 hours because he was not a "new" C-section baby. It didn't matter that he was having problems feeding because he must have "expired" after 20 hours. I ended up taking my wife out of the hospital long before it was safe because she had more stress being in the hospital than being at home where she could have more assistance.

And as a business owner... We've also run into the problem of ignoring the new media for 70% of our customers. The ability to blog, share content, and more importantly, make our customers feel valuable is essential for our success.

Keep up the good work ladies.

[Jesse Kanclerz]

Yvonne,

I hope you don't mind if I respectfully disagree.

Customers are NOT always right, however I also know what they're presently feeling is a reality. Therefore it's up to me to make things right, not just because the business' reputation hangs in the balance but because I believe myself and people to be generally good. With this outlook I think it's possible to provide compassionate customer service. Wouldn't you agree?