The Customer is NOT Always Right ~ Here's Why

Episode 073:  Vonda and Lori discuss the long standing phrase, "The customer is always right". and why it's not the best way to conduct your business. The phrase  was coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge’s department store in London in 1909 and has been used for years by businesses to convince customers that they will get good service at this company and encourage employees to give customers good service.  However, so much has changed since then and there's a price you pay if you stick to it...and it could cost you a valuable employee!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Whenever you're in retail, there's always certain people who are repeat offenders, is what we want to call them.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

It's the pantyhose guy.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Welcome to the Business and Pleasure of Flowers. We're your host, Vonda LaFever, and Lori Wilson.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

And we believe that business and fun are a perfect combination. Kind of like us, Vonda. Good morning, Vonda Leafever. It's Lori. This is Lori.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Is that what you told me?

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

I can see you.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

I love one of my friends from high school. We do it. We're in a group, Marco Polo. You know that app where you I don't know why, but every time she gets on, she goes, Hi gals, it's Kristen. And I'm like, we've known you since second grade, Kristen. We know who you are.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

That is so funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

I know it's it's very, very funny, but yeah, I felt like being funny this morning. Okay, that's all right. Yes. So we are on the other side of Mother's Day. Yes. Thank thank you, Jesus. And I've actually been super happy in talking with most of our Flower Click members. Number one, they had great Mother's Days. Business was great. Business was great. And so far, few complaints, which is always nice. But this is kind of what I want to talk about today because it infuriates me. The consensus is with all of them that customers that did complain are meaner, more mean than ever. Like just rude, flat out rude. I understand if you didn't like your product or if something was wrong with your product, but I feel like there is a diplomatic way to complain, right? But the ones I'm hearing from the who I've spent hours this last week having conversations with shops, like, how do we even respond to this? Because people are so hateful. So I kind of wanted to talk with you about it today because I've been doing some research, as you have, and we have come to the conclusion and we have science to back it up that the customer is not always right.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

That's so true. But for years, we've thought the customer was always right. We've been told as business owners, the customer is always right. And you always like are supposed to suck it up and say, okay, here we are. But now we know it's not true.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Well, what it what has happened is, you know, again, going back to what did I tell you, 1909, that phrase, the customer is always right, was coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge. It he had a department store in London, basically. And so when he would train his employees, you know, back then, he's like, remember, basically he was saying, don't argue with them. The customer is always right. So I think it started in good faith from a training perspective, it has evolved into enabling people, not employees, people to come back and say, Well, the customer's always right. Like they're using it against the employees now.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

They are, and we'll have to go back to a story that Ron Keith, who was a pharmacist and he was in Dixon, Illinois, really good friend of Uds, great guy. But he would tell the story about when he started in the business. He was a pharmacist, but he was like in training and he worked in this drugstore. And there's this lady who came in and she had purchased pantyhose, okay, and was upset because the pantyhose had a run in it, and it was like that when she bought it. Okay, and he's like, excuse me, no, this that doesn't happen. Right. And the lady was getting so upset, and so of course, the owner of the business came out and said, Oh no, ma'am, here you go, here's another pair. And Ron was saying that brand of pantyhose wasn't even available in his store to purchase, and that's why he was like, the customer couldn't be right. But then, back then in the thinking, the customer's always right. You can't tell her that because she will never come back and buy anything else in our store. Right now we know that you're better off not to have those customers. Right, you don't know anything.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Right, right. And especially, I think, from a retail flower store, you're not as big as a department store. You're not a Walmart, you're not a Target, you can't just take back, you know. I know Nordstrom, I actually think they have changed their policy recently, but they have always been known, they'll take anything back, anything. But they can do that. That's fine. A local business owner, retail business owner, cannot afford to keep remaking arrangements because the person that received it calls eight days later and says some of it died. You know, it you're not gonna stay in business if you do that. So that's kind of what we want to talk about today is why, as a manager, as a business owner, maybe you shouldn't have that policy. And a lot of shops maybe don't right now. Um, they've maybe thrown that out the window because again, they realize they're losing so much money. But two things when you have that policy that it can do, number one, it basically enables the customer. You know, there there are people in the world, and you and I both know people like this. This is just how they are.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

You're exactly right. And going back to my days of owning the flower shop, there was certain people that we would get a call at Mother's Day for these two people in particular, yeah. And we would say, We're really sorry, we do not accept orders for them because it was one complaint after another, you know, and after a couple years, it's just like we just learned that you know what, we do not send flowers to this person anymore. I'm gonna give you the phone number of my competitor. You go ahead and call them. Go for it, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:15

And that's what you do because if if you keep taking them, it just enables that person to keep doing their thing. Exactly. And you don't need them as a customer. I know people listening right now are probably thinking, yeah, but then they're gonna write a bad review. You know what? Let them write it, you respond to it. That's right. Genuinely, authentically, I can promise you, people that read through that will see right through that person if you respond to it and say, you know what? Every single time you've ordered from us, you have been unhappy. You know, just be truthful.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

We cannot do anything to make you happy. So we find the best interest of you and ours that you go elsewhere, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

And you don't have to be rude and fight with them, but just answer it and it will go a long way. I've said this, I don't know how many times on our podcast. When I look on um Airbnb or Virbo or when we're renting for our vacations, that's what I look for. If I see a negative review, I want to see how the owner responded. I am so much more interested in how they responded than the review, the negative review itself. Exactly. And then if I start seeing multiple negative reviews and no responses, then that's concern. And I usually click over to the next one. Right. So just respond professionally. Yeah, yeah. And it's okay to call them out if it's truthful, you know. I just wanted to get that part out there. So the first thing it does when you use this method is it just enables the Karen to be more of a Karen, you know, to be the rude person, to be more of a rude person. The other thing it does, and this is what I'm seeing more and more of in our industry. It it basically tells your employee, hey, I'm gonna override you. You I got it, we're just gonna give it to free. It makes your employee frustrated, it makes them feel like they don't have a say, and it makes them feel like, why would I eventually want to even stay here? We know, again, employees leave bosses, they don't leave companies. That's an important thing to think about as a business owner.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Oh, yeah, that's huge, especially now when we can't find employees, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:58

Right, right. And so that's the other thing I was bringing up. You can't probably you cannot afford to lose employees right now. How many conversations have we had through this last year of the struggle of finding people to work in a flower shop? I mean, it's so hard. And then when they do get someone, you know, I I was just on a call with someone yesterday about this. They got someone, they thought it was gonna work. It's clearly not this, you know, and so now they're back to the drawing board. This is the second time. Oh, geez. Because it's it's hard for working in a flower shop takes a certain type of person. Oh, we all know that. Right, right, right. And it definitely takes a team player. So, anyway, those are the two things that we notice that happen whenever you implement this.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

You found a really great article from the Huffington Post that talked about why that phrase is wrong.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

You know, number one, like we just said, it makes your employees unhappy. It really does because they don't feel supported. Um, and number two, again, it gives the already abrasive customer a free pass.

unknown 11:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

You know, I had an interesting conversation, and I bet a lot of shop owners deal with this. Oh, so this particular shop got a call from a woman who was mad because she had ordered flowers to be sent to her daughter that works at a coffee shop, and she never got them. And they were like, Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. Like, what's the order? You know, kind of panicking because it was the week of Mother's Day when this happened. And so they're sorry. What had happened? She had ordered online through 1-800 flowers. She says she got a receipt that said, Thank you for your order. It will be sent by this shop, the the name of this shop. The issue is this shop, they don't do 1-800 flowers, they don't do any, they don't do tailflora. If you do, they don't do any of them. And so they're like, that wasn't us. And so they're going back and forth with this poor woman. One person on the staff is like, let's just do the order. And I'm like, no, don't do it. It wasn't you, right? So we talked through how do you do this? You guys need to take this opportunity, call her back because they said, please send us the receipt so we can figure this out. Well, the woman hasn't sent the receipt yet. However, if she does, if she does have that receipt, you need to take the opportunity to call them and say, Listen, you ordered through 1-800 flowers. We don't accept orders for this. What they did to you was lie. You know, this isn't true. Let's help you, let's backtrack, let's see what you can do. You know, be helpful and kind, but don't just do the order, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:10

No, no, no, no. No, that was a really great advice, though, is now you're going to be almost like a hero, right? You're like, right, it wasn't us, but let me see what we can do to help you find out what happened.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Yes. And also take a minute there to explain to the person how these kind of things happen. Yeah, yeah, true.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

That's you know, it's it's like people don't get it anyway. That's a whole nother. Yeah, on this point number two, I think it's important to note that, like you said, the customer gives an unfair advantage, but it's almost like a rewarded behavior. Yes, it is for them to receive something that they don't deserve, or they complain after eight days and the flowers didn't last. Well, give them some more because we don't want them to complain. The next time it happens, they're gonna do the same thing because it's like, ooh, worked last time. Let's try that again. Yep, it's a rewarded behavior, and we don't want that.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

No, we can't afford that, right? You can't afford it, and you probably don't want this person to continue purchasing from you because this is how they are going to be. So, and that kind of leads to the next one of reason this phrase is wrong, is because bottom line, some customers are just bad for business. So true. They really are. You don't need them, they're never gonna stop complaining no matter what you do. There was a story that I read about Southwest Airlines, and there was a woman that traveled solely on Southwest. She was in, you know, whatever her corporate world was, and so she traveled. But every time she took a trip, she was mad about something, and she would send emails or she would do tweets or she would, you know, complain. It drives me nuts that you they don't serve peanuts on short flights. Why does it matter? I pay good money, like is that or it drives me nuts that they don't have preferred seating, whatever. Always, always a complaint, always wanting a credit, always you know, something. This went on for a while till finally the customer service department received this long email from her again, and they were like, We're done. They sent it to the CEO and said, This is on you now. This is the old CEO. This happened, this was back before social media was as big as it is now, also. So this a lot of anyway, he replied to her and he said, I'm so sorry you feel this way. We will miss you very much. Good luck, and that's the truth and her from Southwest because I'm like, I love that. Can you imagine how supported his employees felt by that? Oh gosh, yes, because she was chronic, a chronic complainer. I think I would want to work for that person. The amount of hours and emotional drain it was taking on his employees was so much bigger. It was worth so much more than just that one customer.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

And that's what kind of goes into the next one. It can lead to worse customer service because the employees are just drained. They're like, oh my gosh. And who gets it? The brunt of that is the next customer or the next five customers who are coming in, and they're like, they're still coming off that bad experience that they've had.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Yeah. And I think every one of us at some point or the other have been that poor next customer. I'm sure we honestly, honest to God, like in a restaurant or a coffee shop or you know, somewhere I've had a server that I can just tell is having a bad day. And so a lot of times I will. I'll ask them, I'll go, you doing all right? Are you what's and she'll, you know, it's sometimes they'll share with you and sometimes they won't. And I'm like, that is a hard job. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

To have to be face to face with these people, and you're dealing with, you know, they she might have just come off of a customer that sent every single thing back because they didn't like any of it, you know, and then has to come back to me and then didn't get a tip, you know, and then has to come and be kind to me. And then if she's mean to me, she's not gonna have as much of a tip.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

So it's it's a spiral, and that's what happens with even the flower shop employees, you know, because they're just not happy, or it could be something internal and it the customer service just goes down, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:59

Right. And then, you know, the last one is like your pantyhose story. Sometimes customers, they're just wrong, just wrong, just totally wrong. They're wrong to call you after eight days and say, My flowers died. And like, well, did you change the water? No. Did you trim the stems? No. Did you have them in direct heat? Yes. You're wrong then. Yeah, and here's a news flash flowers die. I don't know if people get that. Honestly, flowers died. It's how God made them. They grow, they're beautiful, we enjoy them, they die, their seeds fall to the ground, they grow back again. It's just the way it is. Yeah, and it's not the florists' fault. No, it's not, you know, you know that country song. It's called God is Good, Beer is Great, but people are crazy. That's what I think about. I haven't heard that song, Lori. Well, it's not the best song in the world, but the title's one of my favorite. Yeah, but that's true.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

It it could be very true.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Yes, it's very, very true. So again, going back to the Southwest Airline guy, you know, he made it clear his employees were right. He made it very clear that this woman was wrong.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Whenever you're in retail, there's always certain people who are repeat offenders, is what we want to call them. It's it's the pantyhose guy owning a small business. This was a drugstore business, but it was the same thing. And his other story was about paper towels. This lady came in and bought these paper towels, and it was about an ad that had expired, and she came back in and she wanted to buy them at the price that it was before, and all of that. And it was just like at that point, he was the owner of the business, and he'd say, No, that's not right. This is not what you saw, and that's what we have to do as business owners is say, Yes, those flowers after 10 days are going to not look good, they're going to be alive, they are going to die, and it's okay because if you'd like to purchase more, right, please do so because I could tell you enjoyed them, otherwise, you wouldn't want me to replace them. So I think it's us drawing the line as business owners, being kind, being professional, but we almost have to be assertive as this is the way it is.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Yeah. And I think the way to do that too is to be short and sweet. You know, as the manager, go in and just say, We're so sorry, but but cut it as short. Do not let that person go on and on. Because what happens, they can start threatening. Well, I'm gonna write, I'm gonna tell everybody, okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

So one important thing is to know the facts. I think once you know the facts, what happened or what didn't happen, or what the perception was of that person. So find the facts first because then you know how to respond. And like you said, keep it short. Then you also know when they do, if they do write a negative review, you know exactly the facts to respond back to them with.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

Right. And you keep it at that, you don't let your emotions take over in the review. You just here's the facts. Except I do think humor can sometimes help. And here's what I mean there was, I don't remember where it was, a coffee shop or something that had a sign out, and they said, Come on in, we have the greatest coffee in the world. Except that review from Karen. Man, she hates us like from whoever it was, like they played. On it and all it does is engage us more. Right. Because she's like, that's funny. I want to kind of be in there. I don't know. Not maybe not everybody, but things like that make me laugh that they can be open about it.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

For the reviews, yes. But that customer didn't want to, Karen didn't want to know that she wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

No, no. But if they're the one writing the negative review for the world to see, it's open for anyone to see. Yeah. But but it was just funny in the writing. They're like, except for Bob, man, that guy hates us. Yeah, exactly. And so I was like, dang, Bob, lighten up. So anyway, all right. So our takeaways, like you said, find out the facts before you even engage in the conversation. Listen. Right. But also whichever employee that was involved in the transaction or whatever, listen to their side.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Right. Right. And know that the customer isn't always right.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Right. And here's the biggest thing that our wonderful flower shop owners who are also pleasers and then we are the same way is don't be afraid to say no. Don't be afraid to say, you know what? Here's the number of my competitor. Why don't you have them do your orders? I don't know that we're a good fit for you. We can't seem to be making you happy no matter what we do. So let's just call it, call it a truce and move on.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Right, right. And you know, be sure and support your employee because we know that most of the time that employee is probably more important to you than that customer that you can't please. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Exactly. And the last thing to remember people leave bosses, they don't leave companies. Employees leave bosses. And so you have to weigh which is more important right here, that that repeat offender, as you called it, customer, or this employee that I need here every day.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Yeah, good stuff. You know, really. I'm sure many. I can't wait till we go into our shop talk, it's which is next weekend for our members because that's where we start hearing all of the I am so entertained when people share their crazy customer stories.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

And the crazy customer stories then bring about laughter because there's another crazier customer story from one of the other clickers.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

Yeah, and you know what it does? All of our little clickers in the group realize they're not alone. They all have one, they all have a mean customer, and it makes you not feel like you're doing it wrong.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

I'm just gonna say mean gene and mean mean gene, we we used to have, and Ellie will know exactly what that means. So that's a later thing.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

Okay, all right. Well, we'll do that. And so in my world, when someone was mean, my youngest child, he would say, Mama, that boy is a meano. And so we say meos. We each have our thing, we all have our quirks. So speaking of my youngest, I want to tell you what's inspiring me right now. And I think I've probably already talked about it last weekend, but I'm just so excited. Well, this will be launched next week. The day it launches is the day I fly out to Ohio to go spend a week with my boys. I haven't seen them since October. Wow, isn't that crazy? November, December, January, February, March, April, May. Eight months.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

I know it's so hard for mamas.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Oh, it is, it is. Thank goodness for FaceTime. Yes, it doesn't feel like I haven't seen them, but uh I'm just excited to be with them. I don't here's the thing I don't know if they're excited, but I'm excited.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

But mamas need to hug the necks of those boys.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

Yes, yes, yes, and they're they've already requested what they want me to make, like to cook for them and stuff. So I'm I'm just excited to go.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Oh, that's exciting. What's inspiring you? I'll have to tell you what's inspiring me. My sister, who is on our podcast page. She is she's one of our biggest fans, Sonia. Shout out to Sonia. Woohoo! She had puppies.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Oh, that's right. Right? Yeah. French bulldogs. They're the kind that my husband has always wanted, but we have our you know, our little half-price clearance puppy from the rescue place.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

So we gotta, we can only have one dog at a time, right? Well, they were supposed to be born on a Friday, and there was an emergency C section, and they had to go and have the puppies delivered. So she has five little puppies, and they're so adorable, Lori. We'll have to post a picture, yeah, okay. Yeah, that's exciting. That's inspiring me. Of course, new life always is inspiring.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Yes, and puppies are so adorable. So yes, and then my favorite is when we do post pictures of dogs or puppies on our page, usually other people comment with pictures of their own, which always makes me happy. Yes, exactly. Because you can never have enough puppies.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Yes, and if anybody's interested, I'm sure these puppies will be for sale if somebody's interested.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

I wonder how long I don't know how reading works. I don't know how long they have to stay with mama. Is I would imagine eight weeks.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

I would guess so. I know when we got our little one, it was eight or nine weeks, so probably so. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

We can know remember, I do watch a lot of Dr. Poll, so I feel like I'm a vet, so I can know these things. You should know those things then. I should know these things. I do know most French bulldogs you have a C-section because they're so small, it's it could be very dangerous. So I'm sure they probably had that scheduled, like you said. So anyway, that's vet talk for today. That's all I got. All right, till next week. Till next week. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoyed spending time with us because we enjoy spending time with you. If you did, make sure you hit that subscribe button or add the business and pleasure of flowers to your Google morning routine or your flash briefing on Alexa.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

We look forward to seeing you next week. So please come back and join us and discover how a bit of knowledge and one small change in your mindset can take you to new levels in your life and business.