Poll of the Day > Do you think "the customer is always right?"

(+) Yeah! (+)

......have.

I think the money is always right, not the customer
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Sherm128 posted...

I think the money is always right, not the customer

the money is always right?

Depends if you want to retain your customer base. If so, then yes.
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Sometimes you get situations where the customer is right, like an item is on the shelf for X price, but rings up Y. I mean, not one random item thrown on the shelf by a customer(which Ive had people argue prices for, when its clear somebody didnt want an item and threw it anywhere), but a whole stack of em. Okay, fine.

But really if you adhere to this phrase all the time you're inviting yourself to be walked on, as you have customers specifically taking advantage of such an idea.

Peterass posted...

Depends if you want to retain your customer base. If so, then yes.

yeah i've seen this before, they'll do something for a customer that is clearly clearly in the wrong cause they bitch about it too much. Have you every asked to talk to the manager and then the manager told you to fuck off too?

argonautweakend posted...

Sometimes you get situations where the customer is right, like an item is on the shelf for X price, but rings up Y. I mean, not one random item thrown on the shelf by a customer(which Ive had people argue prices for, when its clear somebody didnt want an item and threw it anywhere), but a whole stack of em. Okay, fine.

But really if you adhere to this phrase all the time you're inviting yourself to be walked on, as you have customers specifically taking advantage of such an idea.

yeah i've seen this too, if an item is in the wrong place a customer just put it there that didn't want it, like one thing among a bunch of things and the price is clearly cheaper or not what it should be

JebronLames posted...

Peterass posted...

Depends if you want to retain your customer base. If so, then yes.

yeah i've seen this before, they'll do something for a customer that is clearly clearly in the wrong cause they bitch about it too much. Have you every asked to talk to the manager and then the manager told you to fuck off too?

You gotta think about it from the customer side. If someone told you no, didn't give you what you wanted, or if you felt you were wronged by a business, it's highly unlikely that you'd ever go back there. So really the customer is not always right, but we'll pretend they are until pretending becomes more costly than sending them away.
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The customer is not always right.
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I feel like this is a statement that mostly exists in just movies and no businesses have actuslly ever seriously adhered to this policy. I mean of course the customer isn't always right. I can't just go into Wal-Mart and say, "hey I'm entitled to everything in this store for free" and expect them to go, "you're absolutely right sir, sorry for the inconvenience."

No, the customer is not always right. Probably only right less than half the time.
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There actually is a popular fish/seafood market in my town that has a plaque outside the front doors

"rule #1 - the customer is always right
rule #2 - re read rule #1"

well, a little off but

http://www.inthestrip-pgh.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/wholey-policy-and-bear-ms.jpg

OhhhJa posted...

I feel like this is a statement that mostly exists in just movies and no businesses have actuslly ever seriously adhered to this policy. I mean of course the customer isn't always right. I can't just go into Wal-Mart and say, "hey I'm entitled to everything in this store for free" and expect them to go, "you're absolutely right sir, sorry for the inconvenience."

It's actually the opposite. Most businesses do adhere to this policy but only to the extent that there isn't a materially negative financial impact.
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argonautweakend posted...

There actually is a popular fish/seafood market in my town that has a plaque outside the front doors

"rule #1 - the customer is always right
rule #2 - re read rule #1"

What a spineless business. I prefer bars and restaurants with the signs posted basically saying the opposite like "don't be a dick or you're outta here." I wouldn't work for a company that doesn't put their staff first. As much as doing good business is important, you have to treat your staff with respect first and foremost

That's a lot of unnecessary .'s
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JebronLames posted...

Do you think "the customer is always right?"

From a business prospective making sure the customer is happy is always key so then they will buy from you again. I understand this however having worked in retail I can say that no the customer isn't always right. You bend to their will in most cases and try to make them happy but in the back of your mind you're thinking to yourself "wtf am I doing". -_-
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costumer is right only 50% of the time
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"The customer is always right" and "the worker is always right" are both pretty bad policies. Turns out they're both wrong a lot. Maybe 60-40 in the workers' favor, but that's still a lot of wrong workers.
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I work retail.

I've had customers s**t on the floor and leave... other... fluids in the bathroom.

I've had a customer complain to me why am I putting a kid's book in the kid's section when someone will find it there and it won't be around long enough to get discounted.

I've had a woman come in and try to return a coat she bought over a year ago, complaining it was a men's coat but had been in the women's section. When we explained our return policy (one week) she flipped out because it used to be two weeks, even though even then it wouldn't apply to her. She then proceed to grandly declare she was never shopping HERE again and storm out.

So uh, no. HELL no, the customer is not always right. You should always try to be courteous, but some of them are just goddamn crazy.
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Golden Road posted...

"The customer is always right" and "the worker is always right" are both pretty bad policies. Turns out they're both wrong a lot. Maybe 60-40 in the workers' favor, but that's still a lot of wrong workers.

Naw in my personal experience, I'd say the employee is right the overwhelming majority of the time. Usually, when a customer is bitching it's bc the customer fucked up and they're pissed off and taking it out on the employee.

OhhhJa posted...

What a spineless business. I prefer bars and restaurants with the signs posted basically saying the opposite like "don't be a dick or you're outta here." I wouldn't work for a company that doesn't put their staff first. As much as doing good business is important, you have to treat your staff with respect first and foremost

To be fair, if I ever went to a business where they sided with the staff over the customer 100% of the time, I'd probably stop going there. Then they'd eventually stop being a business, and there wouldn't BE staff anymore.

If anything, the best aphorism would be "The person who is being less of an asshole is right." Because sometimes the customer really is right and the staff are fucking up, but sometimes the customer is a massive douchenozzle and really needs a bitchslapping.


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Context is important. People take it to mean a lot more than it actually does.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

OhhhJa posted...

What a spineless business. I prefer bars and restaurants with the signs posted basically saying the opposite like "don't be a dick or you're outta here." I wouldn't work for a company that doesn't put their staff first. As much as doing good business is important, you have to treat your staff with respect first and foremost

To be fair, if I ever went to a business where they sided with the staff over the customer 100% of the time, I'd probably stop going there. Then they'd eventually stop being a business, and there wouldn't BE staff anymore.

If anything, the best aphorism would be "The person who is being less of an asshole is right." Because sometimes the customer really is right and the staff are fucking up, but sometimes the customer is a massive douchenozzle and really needs a bitchslapping.

Yeah, I mostly meant to shovel shit on crappy retail stores that will bend over for the customer even after they've been belligerent and cussed the employee out

Zeus posted...

Context is important. People take it to mean a lot more than it actually does.

https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/3-poll-of-the-day/75508039
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**** NO! Customers are ignorant, bumbling, morons who often barely know what they're buying and will try to weasel their way into getting better deals despite how obvious it is that they're lying. I've seen them try to use fake coupons, throw massive fits because coupons that expired months prior didn't work, try to get brand new beauty products at clearance prices, buy M-rated games for their 8 year old kids, return used-up tissue boxes because 'they don't match my room' and 'they don't work anymore', demand we provide dairy-free milk (not almond milk but MILK milk, from a cow), throw merchandise when their product is out of stock, and there's plenty more.

Anyone who thinks that the customer is always right has probably never worked a service job in their life. I'm not gonna pretend like I've been a perfect customer but now that I have I most certainly am gonna try to make sure I am a perfect customer.
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As someone who has managed retail:

Sherm128 posted...

I think the money is always right, not the customer

This.
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JebronLames posted...

Sherm128 posted...

I think the money is always right, not the customer

the money is always right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j2uYJYrP_Q
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No. If a customer walks into a restaurant and demands 1/2 off on everything and a lap dance from the waitresses because his drink had one 1 less ice cube than he prefers is he "right"?

That said, if they are willing to pay enough for what they want and aren't inconveniencing others too much they can become right.
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Anyone that says "the customer is always right" has never worked retail.
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The customer is a slobbering fucking moron who exists to make your life hell every day.

Especially those idiots who chew tobacco and spit all over product and shelves in a store. They deserve to get shot in the face on the spot.

The key word here is "always." Always means every single customer who ever comes into a store, restaurant, whatever is right 100% of the time. You mean to tell me that if a store or restaurant has been open for years they won't have a few crazy people walk in along the way and demand things that are simply impossible to provide?
Personally I work at a restaurant, and while 99.9% of people are totally fine and "right" in there demands, its the .1% that give you grief and those kinds of people are the types to be constantly trying to get free food by complaining enough until they get it, even if the food and service was excellent. We had a couple come in a while back for example and we all knew exactly who they were and cringed when we saw them because we knew their reputation. They'd already come in maybe a dozen times and every single time they would complain about every little thing and every time the manager would finally cave and give them a free meal.
Finally though my manager decided he'd had enough and called them out on it and said to them, "well if the service is always so bad, then why do you keep coming back?"
They were pretty taken aback by that and asked if they could speak to another manager. Since my manager was the only one on duty at the time, he told them it was just him and refused to comp their meal.
We were all grateful when they never came back.
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As a general rule, the louder a customer is, the more wrong they are but I've never seen a manager that didn't bend right on over for a customer no matter how wrong the customer was.
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I've always interpreted it like this: Dismissing a complaint as the customer being wrong is worthless. It doesn't matter why they're upset. They're upset and it's in your best interest to fix it. Even if it was literally because they were ignorant and wrong, then it's your fault for not getting them the necessary information.

I've found this phrase quite helpful while running D&D games. I've had players come to me with complaints that were totally off-base and incorrect, with their interpretations of events just wildly far from my intentions. But it didn't matter, because for all my explanation, it was still my fault that I let them believe that in the first place, and my solution was find what they misunderstood and how to do it better next time. Dismissing the complaints as the players being wrong would have caused me to run a worse game.
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I hate that saying. When I worked for GS, our fucking Penguin look-alike district manager gave a $50 gift card to some rusty tromboner that lied and said the store was closed half an hour early, despite the registers having sales up until the appropriate closing time... Fuck both of those dickheads.

I remember pulling the line from Falling Down once, where somebody said "I thought the customer was always right?!" to which I replied with "that's not our policy." It actually wasn't, at least not on paper, and he was really not expecting me to say that. After being there a couple of years, I basically turned into Randall from Clerks. I remember calling this one guy a crybaby and his friend burst out laughing and high fived me... It can be fun if you don't care if you get fired.
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The only people that think the customer is always right are stupid customers.
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http://violentacres.com/two-phrases-that-destroyed-american-culture/
From the blog

"I have a theory about asshole customers: I think they only act that way because no one ever calls them on their bullshit."

Unfortunately, service employees are fairly powerless against the assholes, so it falls upon other customers to speak up.

TyVulpine posted...

Anyone that says "the customer is always right" has never worked retail.

Yes!

JebronLames posted...

......have.

Anyone TyVulpine posted...

Anyone that says "the customer is always right" has never worked retail.

Came to post this, wasn't disappointed.

WhiskeyDisk posted...

As a general rule, the louder a customer is, the more wrong they are but I've never seen a manager that didn't bend right on over for a customer no matter how wrong the customer was.

That's not always the case-if you've been screwed over then you should get loud until it's fixed-the issue there is who's 'right' is always very subjective.

The one constant I've found is that the most painful and time consuming customers are often the ones that spend the least/have the least value and the ones that have the cash just get what they want and get out with minimal fuss. There are exceptions of course but it's been pretty reliable for over a decade.

I have never worked in retail, but a lot of times the customers are annoying assholes who need their shit kicked in. Even as a customer there are plenty of other customers I wish I could just punch in the face for the worker because they can't do it without getting fired.
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The customer is sometimes a bitch, therefore debunking the "customer is always right" claim.
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Because of this phrase, I think it should be mandatory for all high school students (all, including public, private, and home school) to work a minimum of 6 months in a retail service job before being able to graduate, period. Maybe a year even, to really pound it into them.
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