Customer Service – Is The Customer ALWAYS Right?

Well today was another tough day in the life of an entrepreneur and business owner. I had a 9am meeting then I spent the next four hours on the golf course!

It was a beautiful day here in southern California; bright sunshine and not too hot.

Okay, okay just in case my wife gets a hold of this article, let me explain myself a little more.

I’m on the board of a rather large non-profit in town and one of our major fundraisers is our annual golf tournament. The event will be in a couple of weeks and I was at the course with several other committee members and staff to do our final walk-through. After the walk-through meeting the club invited us to play golf.

It’s rough duty but someone has to do it!

So here is the business lesson that was reinforced for me today – It has to do with customer service:

When we first started to negotiate with the club to hold our event there, we requested, and were promised, a particular ballroom in which to hold our post round reception and awards ceremony.

Today, when we arrived, we were told that another organization had also booked the room and that their event would probably overlap with ours. Because of this the club suggested another ballroom for us. Although this alternative ballroom was nice and even bigger than our original choice, it was really far away from the course and it was a long walk down a hill, which of course meant a long walk up hill when things were over – NOT GOOD!

The lesson, which I already knew, and want to share with you, is that the customer is NOT always right! But when the customer is right, THE CUSTOMER IS RIGHT!

Let me explain what I mean…

Outstanding customer service is not about bending and breaking in order for the customer to be right – i.e. the customer is NOT always right.

What outstanding customer service web style Houston is about is making the customer feel valued. Even when the customer is dead wrong, if you can make them feel valued and honor their business with you, you are delivering outstanding customer service.

So what about the situation where the customer actually is right?

In this situation you need to acknowledge that they are right and then provide a solution where they feel valued – i.e when the customer is right, the CUSTOMER IS RIGHT!

So back to today…

I would not give the club high marks for customer service because we were right (they even admitted we were), but they NEVER did anything to make us feel valued.

Delivering outstanding customer service is not hard to do. The first step to delivering outstanding customer service is understanding that it’s not about who’s right and who’s wrong, it’s about making your customer feel valued.

Now go out and make someone feel valued!