I’ve had the luxury (or misfortune depending on one’s mindset) of having spent most of my working life in either food or retail. In fact, my main source of income for most of that time was a specialty retail store that sold mainly cabinetry. There is an adage in business, “THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT”. Well, I hate to tell everyone. This is bullshit. It’s such bullshit that the exact opposite is usually the case. Most customers have no idea what they’re talking about, and you’re probably one of them. I can tell so many stories about customers who were absolute assholes and talked down to me. Hell, some even cussed me out. Those are my favorite. Contrary to what your business professor probably told you, the absolute WORST thing you can do is always behave as though the customer is right. Why? The first reason is that by bowing down to a customer whether they’re right or wrong sets a dangerous precedent for the remainder of the relationship.
Now, there are times when a customer IS right. In these situations, it behooves you to do whatever you can to correct the mistake and make the customer happy within reason. I’ll share an example. I did business with a ton of house flippers over the years, and one of them was arguably our best customer. I got a call from him randomly one day after we’d delivered an order. He’s obviously upset (at the situation, but it’s still obvious). Somehow, he’d received two 30” cabinets instead of the two 36” cabinets that were on his order and he had paid for. Not only that, but they also had a countertop template scheduled in two days. Holy shit is right! My first instinct (and it should be yours too) when something like this happens is to check and see if I fucked up. You’ll find that the majority of mistakes in your workplace are the result of that careless idiot you look at in the mirror every morning. Accept it, check yourself and move on. I promise you’ll be happier. Anyway, sure enough it was my fault. I checked the e-mail I’d sent to place the rush order and I’d typed 30 instead of 36. Such a stupid mistake. Now, there’s a lot of debate on what the correct approach is when you find that you’ve made a mistake. Unfortunately, we live in a world that rarely rewards honesty. Usually, I er on the side of honesty is the best policy. BUT, when you’re dealing with a high value and/or repeat customer, your reputation is everything. So, what did I do? I totally blamed someone else. There are a ton of books and self-help gurus that will tell you to always take ownership. I’d say that’s the correct path most of the time. But the sad reality is that in the business world, some people don’t accept the fact that you’re human and even if you take responsibility and fix it, they’ll never look at you the same way again. I came up with a plan super fast and implemented it. I luckily had one 36” cabinet in stock and could modify another one, I just needed the parts. So that’s what I did. My customer was happy, and I looked like a rockstar. The important distinction here is I saved my reputation without directly damaging someone else’s. My cabinet manufacturer had zero direct dealing with my customer. I dealt with him directly. My reputation was more important for both businesses. The more cabinets I sold, the more money we both made. Before you start judging me too harshly, I’ve done the favor for several contractors in my time. People tend to me less angry when the screw up comes from someone they don’t deal with directly. Maybe it’s the absence of a clearly defined target. Who knows?
Now, an example of a time a customer was dead wrong. I’ll do my best to give the condensed version, but this whole story spans about a year and a half. Yes, you read that correctly. We had a customer whose real name I can’t give you for obvious reasons. So we’ll call him Captain Dipshit McFuckface. This gentleman bought a kitchen off of us while we were set up at a trade show. Keep in mind, I’ve sold these exact cabinets for about 15 years at this point. I know them inside and out. Certainly better than any customer would know. However, McFuckface was an engineer and therefore knew everything.
Slight rant: I hate engineers. If you’re an engineer reading this, sorry not sorry. You’re a prick. It seems to be a prerequisite of the job. Also, have you ever noticed how they always find a way to drop their job into a conversation. It’s like, “Hi! My name is Captain Dipshit McFuckface, and I’M AN ENGINEER”. End rant.
Long story short, the cabinets had been assembled for 9 months before he picked them up. They’d been sitting in a warehouse, in the way, and being constantly moved. Granted, he had some legitimate issues. All of these were fixed with no questions asked and as timely as possible given that this was the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns and getting ANYTHING was a bear. The problems started coming up when this “engineer” was being a moron. For example, he called me one day complaining that he couldn’t get his hinges to stay tight to the cabinet and he was afraid he was going to strip the screws out. Completely confused (as I’d mounted several thousand of these hinges by this point) I told him it was probably his drill bit needing changed out. He then said that couldn’t be the case because he wasn’t using a drill bit. Now I’m completely lost. I then asked if he was using a hand screwdriver and he snapped back with “well what else would I use”?
To say this person was difficult is an understatement. I went to his house for service calls four times before it was all said and done. My biggest mistake was giving him my cell phone number. This all came to a head when he called me one time and was extremely aggressive and started cussing me out when I explained to him why we couldn’t keep replacing cabinets because he was having “issues” with the cabinet quality. After he started dropping a couple of f-bombs and threatening to sue me repeatedly, I snapped. I told him that talking this way was getting us nowhere and if he wanted to talk to me like an adult he could call back, but until then he could go fuck himself. CLICK. The best part was my business partner’s wife happened to be sitting very close by and heard the entire thing. What’s the moral of the story? From that point on, we still had issues with the guy, but he never cursed or got aggressive with me again. I’d told him in no uncertain terms that if he was going to talk to me that way, I wasn’t going to participate. If I can stress one thing from this writing, it’s that the worst thing you can do in business is neuter yourself. Whether you’re right or wrong, people won’t respect you if you don’t have balls. I can disagree with someone with every fiber of my being, but still respect them. If I hadn’t put my foot down in that moment, this guy would continue walking all over me. The most powerful person in a negotiation is the one who is willing to walk away. So whenever you’re in a situation where someone is telling you “the customer is always right”, ask yourself if the customer is always right, why are they paying you?
