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What are the limits, if the customer is NOT always right?
Just one example: Say you own a bar and people smoke cigarettes and cigars in that bar. One customer complains they don`t like the smell of the smoke. Who`s right, the customer who`s smoking or the one who wants no smoking?
What "model" do you hold in your mind, in relation to customers? We`re all of us customers at some point, and I think most of us tend to start with the notion "I`ll treat my customers the way I want to be treated."
Doesn`t that sound like The Golden Rule---"do unto others as you would have them do unto you?" There`s a problem there, with the logical organization of the sentence.
What happens when we change it, "Do NOT do unto others, as you would not have them do unto you?" Interesting proposition.
In the first instance, suppose you like to projectile vomit on people, just because it`s a fun thing to do, and you come from a long-line of Olympic projective vomitters. ;-) Just because YOU would have others do unto you what you like so much, does that make it the best way to go through life?
On the other and, by using the exclusionary version, we come closer to the Hippocratic Oath, "I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone."
Somehow, though, as we begin running a business, we tend to separate out the personal experience of being a customer, from the other experience of being the owner, clerk, associate, or employee. How does that happen?
We also know that some customers want to take advantage of a business. There`s the modern perception that all business owners are rich beyond Croesus, with "deep pockets." If someone sues a business "nobody gets hurt." Another ridiculous perception and the result of modern American education. So? What do we do about it?
Is anyone else increasing annoyed with the disclaimers on eBay that go ten times beyond the length of the ad? Is THAT customer relations?
And what`s the difference between customer relations, customer service, and customer satisfaction? Are these just modern ways to play games with the language to make it sound better?
Remember the famous experiment regarding the blue- and brow-eyed children? Remember how quickly the "superior" children began to attack the "inferior" children? Is that what happens when we introduce the illusion of a wall between a customer/employee and an owner/employer?