One of my least favorite sayings (ever since becoming a business owner) is: “The customer is always right.”
No offence to H. Gordon Selfridge who supposedly coined the phrase, but it really is nonsense. No one is always right. And more importantly, there are actually some very bad customers out there—customers that aren’t only wrong, but whom you really don’t want as your customer at all.
There is a lot that has been written about businesses “firing” their bad customers, of course. And that discussion is nothing new. But in today’s economy, when you’re doing everything possible to bring a customer through the door, it’s a lot harder not to stand there and take it … to actually let the customer always be right. And unfortunately, it feels like there are more and more bad customers every day.
Now I want to be clear: if you are a business delivering poor customer service, or poor quality, you get what you deserve. The consumer market is obviously the very best assessment of your value and you need to always measure this (at Metro we utilize a Secret Shopper Program). If you’re getting consistent complaints about your business, you need to listen to your customers and fix something. This is not what this blog is about. No, what I’m talking about here are the just plain mean, nasty, greedy, ungrateful, rude customers. The ones with a scowl on their face before ever entering your door; the ones a magic genie couldn’t make happy. And let’s face it: they’re a beast of a different color altogether.
The good news, of course, is that these customers are actually few and far between. At Metro, we wash about 800 cars a day—that’s a lot of people’s lives we touch, if only for a few minutes—and almost every one of them is pleasant and appreciative of the service we provide. It’s just that the nasty ones (the ones that do or say things that leave your jaw hanging open in astonishment) are the ones you remember. They’re the ones you go home thinking about; the ones that get in your head and can wreck your day (and then perhaps have a negative impact on the good customers too). These individuals are few in number; they just make deep impressions.
I don’t know that there is a perfect way to handle them, btw. I just know that they will inevitably cross your path. And for what it’s worth, here’s what I do to keep myself sane:
First, I really do try to see the logic or the sense in what they’re saying. I listen to them intently and see if maybe we’ve done something wrong. If we’re not (wrong), and they’re just being rude and unreasonable, I calmly take a step back and remind myself of something my wife once told me: “When you see someone that’s mean and bad-tempered, there’s a reason. Someone’s making their life hard. Someone’s hurting them. It may be a very bad day, or it may even be a very hard life. You just happen to be the one they’re taking it out on.”
I like the sense in that. It doesn't ever make their actions justified, but it puts things into perspective. For me, it allows me to let them escape from my day (and my life) without leaving too much of a negative mark. I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for whatever story lies underneath their nasty demeanor. And with this hurting economy, those bad stories are only getting more common.
Last weekend, a man with a scowl on his face walked up to me and my manager as we were talking. He pointed at his car that was in a Detail Bay for a hand wax; then he pointed a meaty finger in our faces. He said (and I quote): “No one’s started waxing my car yet! I’m a cop. If you don’t get someone working on that car, I’ll make one call and this business will be !@%*# up!”
I wish I was making that up. I’m not (although I do want to say we wash the cars of several great police officers who have become our friends).
In shock, we looked over to the car. What the customer couldn’t see was that one of my best workers (also my shortest employee) was just finishing the wax on the opposite side of his car. My manager pointed this out to the customer. In response, the customer said: “Oh. I didn’t see.” And that was it. Not a hint of an apology. He just turned away and continued to scowl.
As my manager and I backed away, I could see my manager was upset. And he had a right to be. The guy had just accused us of something that wasn’t true, he had threatened us, and neither of those things seemed to matter to him. Inside the lobby, we found our cashier a little flustered. She described the same man; she said he’d been rude and short to the point where she’d felt uncomfortable. Obviously, this was a nasty customer. And unfortunately, he had gotten into the heads of my employees.
I told them both to shake it off. I quoted my wife. I told them to enjoy their day. Whatever was behind that guy’s attitude was awfully sad. I told them not to be bothered by him; just feel sorry for him. And then I told them to be thankful they didn’t have anything that bad hanging around their neck.
It may not be a perfect solution. But really, what else are you going to do? My advice: get them out of your head as quickly as you can. Don’t let a rotten customer pass their mood on to you. Smile. Go shake the hand of a good customer and then thank them for their business. Slap an employee on the back. Roll your shoulders and be grateful. You’ll be surprised how quickly you get your mojo back.
Stay clean my friends (and happy).
--DJ DripDry
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