Must customers always be right?

CUSTOMERS ARE ALWAYS RIGHT

Have you heard of this saying before? I couldn’t come to term with this saying.

Why? Because in my perspectives, customers are also humans, the seller is also human. Human are not perfect. Human cannot be RIGHT all the time.

I found out:

Meaning

The trading policy that states a company's keenness to be seen to put the customer first.

The Origin

Several retail concern used this as a slogan from the early 20th century onward. In the USA it is particularly associated with Marshall Field's department store, Chicago (established in the late 19th century). The store is an icon of the city, although it is set to lose its name in 2006 when, following a takeover, it becomes renamed as Macy's. In the UK, Harry Gordon Selfridge (1857-1947) the founder of London's Selfridges store (opened in 1909), is credited with championing its use. The Wisconsin born Selfridge worked for Field from 1879 to 1901. Both men were dynamic and creative businessmen and it's highly likely that one of them coined the phrase, although we don't know which.

Of course, these entrepreneurs didn't intend to be taken literally. What they were attempting to do was to make the customer feel special by inculcating into their staff the disposition to behave as if the customer was right, even when they weren't.

[Taken from http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/106700.html.]

Working in my parents’ shop gave me first hand experiences. Of course, not all customers act this way. However, few customers do or think so. They are the ones who get on my nerve. They need not say ‘customer is always right’ policy but rather the way they talk or treat another. Sometimes they are rude and selfish. They used the power of money to belittle another. The vibe of arrogance and cockiness comes from their actions of treating another.  

I think these people had not truly grasped the meaning of the phrase and they had misused the phrase. This is how I look at the phrase 'Customers are always right' – we put customers first. We are service provider who goes out to look at the interest of the customer. We serve the customer at our best, but that doesn’t mean we give you the leeway to treat badly or belittle us. Through observation, I sometimes wondered what complexity this person has to be acting as such? A person who can’t accept to be wrong at times? I don’t know the person as a whole. But, I could sense the insecurity of the person even in a short encounter. 

Especially in the age of IT now, many thinks that the information found in IT is DEFINITELY RIGHT. Some of them come to the shop as a Mr/Ms Know-It-All. What is more valuable? Life experience of another person or the information you get from the internet? Which is tested? My family learned to let the person learnt from his/her mistakes. There’s no point to argue it out because the person is not even willing to listen and learn. We said what we need to say, then we leave it for the person to decide which information he/she deems right. 

Well, it’s not easy to work in the line where we provide service to people, because we meet all SORTS of people from different generations. Many may had lost the understanding what it really means by the phrase. They had taken to the extreme that they are RIGHT all the time and not willing to learn anymore.

When a person reaches that stage, the person is STUCK! Ears, heart and mind are totally closed to incoming information. A stuck person will not grow and learn. 

I am also not saying that we as the seller are ALWAYS RIGHT. We are all humans. We do make rights and wrongs. If we all decide to give each other the space to be right or wrong, then that already make a different. 

This applies to life as well. You and I can’t be RIGHT all the time! We are beings who learn throughout life. Mistakes. Wrong choices. When we made mistakes, we learned from it. We also need to have a listening heart and ears and minds that is open for criticism. The people who are around us see things at a different perspectives that we maybe can’t see. So, why not listen from their perspectives, understand it and learn from it? It’s perfectly fine if you still want to maintain your way. But, at least you made a different. You listen.

If one is right all the time, then there leaves no room for growth.