Do you have to handle difficult behaviour from customers?
How does that align with what Mahatma Ghandi said, “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so.”
Is the customer always right?
The phrase the customer is always right was originally coined by Harry Gordon, the founder of the UK’s Selfridge’s department store in 1909.
Most customers are a sheer delight to assist and serve. The aim of any customer relationship must be to delight the customer and provide them with what they need.
Are some customers unreasonable?
There are in fact those rare times when you will have that very unreasonable customer who has set out to get a ‘freebie’ from your company come hell or high water. You have that one renegade customer who frequently terrorises you with unreasonable service demands.
Customers can be irrational, selfish, not knowing what they want, irresponsible, and even unprofitable. As in any relationship, sometimes there is mis-alignment of expectations. In fairness, sometimes we allow, and even facilitate unrealistic expectations with our customers for not challenging and saying “no” in order to achieve a good outcome and a profitable relationship.
Customers are always right about one thing
Customers are always right about one thing and that is how they feel.
It is for this reason, that to properly service a customer, you need to be concerned not only about the product or service you offer but also recognise their feelings and emotions. These are the only real things that a customer is sure about.
These feelings need to be the anchor on which you build your plan to address any problem. The ‘moment of truth’ comes when you have to handle a difficult situation and how you do so will determine if they come again with repeat business.
Team Skills run a number of Customer Service training courses in and around Worthing, Brighton, Crawley and throughout West Sussex. We are also able In our latest set of videos at www.howtobeassertive.com we show you How to Handle Difficult Behaviour From Customers so that you can achieve the balance between excellent customer service and profitable business.
