What If the Customer Isn’t Always Right?

Ahh, customer service. Oh, the joys.

With approximately 1,291,000 individuals employed in the Australian retail industry, a large quantity of you have likely gained experience in retail or still have something to do with the non-stop world of customer satisfaction.

The saying goes, “the customer is always right”. But what if—what if!—this isn’t correct?

Let’s begin with a little history lesson. This phrase was popularised by Harry Gordan Selfridge, who founded Selfridge’s department store back in 1909. His London store followed this motto in the hopes of bringing customers through their doors, with employees giving every consumer excellent quality customer service and being rewarded with returning visitors.

However, the idea that the customer is always right isn’t always correct. Telling any employee that the customer is always right creates a subconscious that your employer will side with the customer in any situation, even if they’re wrong. This causes an imbalance and improper favouritism towards the customer, and pitching your employees against customers only leaves workers frustrated and unhappy.

Having worked in the customer service industry for almost five years, I know what it’s like to be yelled at over something you know the customer is most certainly lying about. Picture a small 14-year-old girl who’s only had three shifts of work in her life getting verbally abused by a 60-year-old man because his Diet Coke didn’t taste like Diet Coke. (I had only forgotten to press down the button on the lid indicating ‘Diet’.) I stood there blank-faced and afraid of getting yelled at by my manager, and prayed the ‘trainee’ name badge would speak for itself. Yes, I remember, even five years later.

The retail industry is largely made up of young people, aged 15 – 24. In fact, more than 33 per cent of all employees carrying out this type of work are in this age bracket. Does being this young suggest that the individual who served the complaining older customer is immediately in the wrong? No, it doesn’t. More often than not, these young people are trained correctly and are doing their best to improve their skills and abilities while on shift.

Customer service is a difficult job. When customers stomp straight up to the counter and lie to your face about the product they received, it really puts a downer on everyone’s day, employee as well as consumer. To fix this issue, I believe we need excellent managers and better support systems in the retail industry to back one another up.

Yes, there may be mistakes made here and there. It happens; we’re all human. And maybe 100 years ago, the customer was right every single time. But in 2017, let’s join together to smash this phrase out of the store, and treat one another with some more respect.

Jess Pabian is one of Student Edge’s student contributors. See more student contributions here.

Photo: CBS