The customer is not always right...

One of the things that drove me absolutely crazy about my last job (with a well-known Fortune 500 company) was their insistence that the customer is always right. Many companies view this as gospel truth. As an entrepreneur, I know that you can provide great customer service and make customers happy without adhering to this rule.

At this Fortune 500 company, the corporate folks had a hard and steadfast rule: no matter what, if the customer disagrees with you, he's right. Should said customer file a complaint with the corporate office - even if the store manager had a surveillance video that would prove beyond any doubt that the customer was blatantly lying - the local manager would be forced to contact the customer, apologize, and make things right in the customer's eyes.

This policy is bad on so many levels...for one thing, it absolutely destroys employee morale. Employees know that no matter what the situation might be, if a customer complains the employee will be tried and convicted without the opportunity to explain or defend himself. Enforcing this policy also teaches customers that if they wish to receive a product or service without paying for it, they can do so by placing a phone call to the corporate office and filing a false complaint. I witnessed numerous instances where customers did just that...every time they came in the door they would find fault with something or someone and file a complaint, with the result being that whatever product or service they had contracted for would be free.

Many small business owners believe that in order to provide good customer service and build their businesses they must also adhere to this rule. I believe that we as entrepreneurs must be willing to lose a customer in the short run in order to succeed - and maintain our sanity - in the long run.

Employees should be taught to do everything in their power to provide good customer service, even if it means being on the receiving end of a scathing lecture about some perceived slight. Employees should always remain polite and professional, even in situations where they believe the customer is in the wrong. Situations like these can often be defused right there at the front counter without ever involving a manager or owner. An employee who listens and is empathetic - "I'm sorry you feel that we ignored you when you walked in; I know how frustrating that can be" - can be your best first defense against an unhappy customer. If that fails, the employee should then involve the manager or owner, which for most small businesses is one and the same. Never should an employee be rude or short with a customer, or make the determination that there's nothing we can do to satisfy the customer. That is - and always will be - the manager or owner's decision to make.

One of the things I like most about being a small business owner is the knowledge that, since I do not have to answer to some higher authority, I can decide that a customer may just not be the right fit for us. I would rather lose a customer who consistently makes unreasonable demands or who is abusive to employees than continue dealing with him or her. In addition, I expect customers to respect me, my employees, and our property.

Let me give you an example of a customer who was not the right fit for us. Shortly after we opened, we had a customer who had been to another art studio in our area where customers were encouraged to sign their names on the studio wall. This customer approached me and asked if we had a wall somewhere that customers could sign. I explained to her - politely and with a smile - that I had also been to that studio, but that we had made the decision not to allow this practice in our studio. She turned and walked away, obviously annoyed. Now, this was a grown woman who walked off in a huff because she was not allowed to paint her name on my freshly painted walls. I assumed that she would eventually just come to grips with the fact that she would not be allowed to paint "Sonja was here!" for the entire world to see. (We should be so lucky as to have the entire world breaking down our door to take classes from us!) I was wrong.

Shortly after this exchange with Sonja - and yes, that is her real name! - our class ended and customers filed out of the studio. Much to my surprise (and extreme irritation), as I rounded the corner to begin cleaning up I saw that Sonja had boldly signed her name in white paint on our black wall. Now, if you know anything about paint colors, you know that white pretty much covers anything, and is in fact the hardest color to paint over. So, on a black wall, white is going to be darned difficult to get rid of. In fact, four months later, after several coatsof paint and even a little sanding you can still see where Sonja painted her name on our wall.

Since our studio was so new, I was probably angrier than I should have been. But I felt violated...it was like someone had walked into my house and signed their name on my living room wall. My first instinct was to look Sonja up and go over to her house to return the favor. Instead, I made the decision that Sonja's business is not worth it to me. She is no longer welcome in our studio. If she signs up for a class, she will be notified that because she defaced our wall she is now persona non grata at our studio. At the moment I came to the conclusion that Sonja would not be allowed back in our studio, I realized something very important: that as a small business owner, there will be customers who either cannot be satisfied or who are just more trouble than their business is worth. And on those occasions, it is my right to let them know that it's just not a good fit for us - that they might be better served somewhere else. What a liberating thought! As a business owner I can "fire" a customer!

While I continue to do everything in my power to ensure that everyone who walks through our door has an awesome customer experience with us, I do so with the knowledge that we cannot please everyone, and that's ok. There will be customers who are - to put it simply - just more trouble than they're worth. Does that mean that we take the easy way out and become resigned to losing unhappy or troublesome customers? Absolutely not. However, it does make it much easier knowing that, if our best efforts - and I do mean BEST efforts - fail and the relationship cannot be salvaged, we'll be ok. Losing a customer is never a good thing, and you don't ever want it to happen. But in business, as in life, sometimes it's just not worth the cost.

Well, first of all...I think that I am probably the only one who really cares what I think.

And to tell you the truth, sometimes even I don't care. But I digress (as I often do).

I need a forum where I can pass out advice - much of it unwanted, unappreciated, and not at all relevant - because once I hit 40, I realized that I now know everything! Ok, so maybe not, but I am finally at the age where I am willing to listen and learn from the mistakes of others, whereas to this point I have not been. So I was thinking...maybe there are folks out there who can learn from my mistakes, and my experiences. And believe me, I have made a lot of mistakes, and I seem to have a lot of interesting (and often just plain weird, stupid, and unbelievable) experiences.

Now that I am a small business owner (actually, I only own half - the half that doesn't have to deal with the money issues) those mistakes and experiences are coming at me at an alarming rate. As a result, much of this blog will be about business issues. Sometimes it may sound like just plain old venting. Sometimes it may sound like that because it IS just plain old venting. But maybe - just maybe! - someone will learn something (anything) that might just make their lives a little easier, or prosperous, or more interesting. And when I say interesting, I mean in a good way...not in a "Holy crap! Why did I listen to her?" way.

So read this, don't read this...share it if it helps you in any way, warn others to avoid it if it does the opposite. And for those of you out there who are younger and less seasoned than I, just know that I too was sure that I knew everything at your age (doesn't matter what age, if it's before 40 I thought that). But I didn't. And now I do (I'm only half-kidding). And I am willing to let you learn from my mistakes and experiences...to be a cautionary tale, if nothing else.

If you don't listen to me, find someone else who's older and wiser to learn from. You'll recognize us older and wiser folks...we're the ones with gray hair. (We try to cover it, but if you look really close, we're easy to spot.)

Feel free to comment, to do your own venting, and definitely feel free to disagree with me or with anyone else who might comment. But do so respectfully. Disagree agreeably, if you will. We don't all have to get along on this great planet. But we do have to respect the opinions of others. One day you might just look back and realize that some of those "others" knew what they were talking about. Happens to me every day.