The customer is always right.

Right?

Huh – not hardly. Anyone who has a business that provides a product or service to customers can tell you that. I have a few stories of my own.

But even when you KNOW a customer is wrong, they can still hurt your business.

I have been in a customer service capacity in one form or another for about 30 years now. Most of my off-line business customer interactions are B to B, which I actually prefer. As customers, they can be pretty demanding, but they are also among the more reasonable ones when something goes wrong.

Let me give you an example.  My day business services equipment in the pharmaceutical manufacturing space. My customers are literally drug makers. My main function is calibration of control systems and instrumentation. Going back a dozen or so years, we were performing such calibration activities for a customer on some very touchy instruments. We had 30 to do. I left these to our new guy since they were SUPPOSED to be simple.

About two hours into the day my technician calls me and asks me to come by where he’s working.  Long story short, it turns out he broke 2 of the 30 instruments. These ran about $350 each back then. My guy was panicking. How do we handle this with our customer? They’re gonna be pissed!

After I confirmed these two units were bad, I took out my phone and called one of my suppliers. I asked him to overnight me 3 of these units. I got a discount 🙂  Then I had my guy come with me to talk to our customer.

I told him that 2 units were broken and that we accidentally broke them. I explained the sensitive nature of the units and how common this is. Which was true, actually.

Now – and I think this is the important part – before my customer even had a chance to comment, I explained to him that we already ordered 3 units, and that we would be on site the next day to calibrate and replace the 2 broken units and give them the third one for free as a spare.

They were actually speechless. And impressed.  I know they were because their exact words were “Wow – impressive”.  They were also understanding. They insisted on paying half the cost of the units (we would not let them pay for the labor though).

So – even though we were responsible for breaking the units, our actions impressed our customer. We got more work from them and even further, when one of the customers left this company to go to another one, guess who he called when he needed service?

The key here was having a solution BEFORE going to them with the problem. Hey – we ALL make mistakes in our business. And sometimes our customers make mistakes. But cooler heads lead to compromises and fairy tale endings.

To this day, my consulting business spends not ONE penny on advertising. ALL of my business is through referrals because my customer KNOW, LIKE and TRUST me. (Sound familiar?)

In your on-line business, do you handle your own service and support? Or do you hire it out?  If you consider yourself a fair and reasonable business person, then make SURE whoever you hire to handle your support is like-minded.

I had an experience recently with a software company whose software I have used off and on for the past 15 years. I was a little surprised at the treatment I received from the support person. I wouldn’t say horrible – more like…condescending. It took me a little by surprise. So I reached out to the owner.

After reviewing the ticket, he agreed with me that the tone left something to be desired, but that he understood what he was trying to convey in his responses to me.

I can respect that. I wasn’t perfect in my replies either.

So, although the business owner knew I was a customer, he didn’t automatically take my side. He treated me respectfully while understanding why I was a little put off. We left things very amicably. He is a gentleman and I appreciated that. At the end of the day, his treatment assures my continued patronage (I DO love the software after all).

Customer service is something way too many business owners don’t put enough effort into. And it costs them business. Guaranteed.

At the end of the day, I am not suggesting that you roll over and take any abuse from customers – I certainly don’t. Just be a little understanding even if they get testy. Always look for a solution before simply banning them from your products. Like it or not, they have a voice too and that can cost you more business.

In the 30 years of business – both off line and on line – I have only “fired” 2 customers. And even then, only after all other avenues were tried.