The Customer is NOT always right

When I was a resort operations exec, that statement was one my employees loved hearing from me. They would say,

“Come on Rosa, say it, just say it. Just stop at the ‘however’ part.”

When you are in the customer service business you will inevitably come across the person who is simply a jerk and for some reason relishing being one at that point in time, and there is no satisfying him or her.

So I would say it, giving them the brief satisfaction they craved, the affirmation that it wasn’t them, it was the customer. The customer was having a day in which they woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and the customer needed to go back to sleep so they could start the day over, and start it over happy.

Yet brief satisfaction given, my employees knew that after a pregnant pause in which we all smiled at each other in cahoots, I was not going to “stop at the ‘however’ part.” This was the speech, and we all knew it by heart:

The customer is NOT always right … however, how the customer is feeling right now is their reality, and we have to take the high road, being the good people we are, and figure out what in the world happened causing them to feel as they do. If we had any part in that cause and effect sequence WHATSOEVER, we are the ones who need to make it right. In fact, even if we didn’t, we still have to make it right, because this is about who WE are. And we are good people.

I thought about this today after re-reading a talk story we’ve been having at Rick’s place and Adrian’s place about motivation, values, and relativity.

I often talk about how values determine our behavior: In a nutshell, that is the entire premise of Managing with Aloha. I write of the nineteen different universal values I believe will help you create a better business, when they are inculcated into a company’s culture pervasively enough to shape everyone’s behavior for the better.

Values do something else. They frame things for us. They provide us with a kind of looking glass, a lens through which we see the rest of the world from our own viewpoint. They cause you to see things very subjectively, colored by your opinions and beliefs. Ignoring your values is not an easy thing to do.

So regardless of what they are, the clearer and stronger your values are, and the more definite, assertive, and passionate you are about articulating them, the more you must practice Ha‘aha‘a and Ho‘ohanohano. In Hawaiian, these are the values of humility, modesty, open-mindedness, dignity, and respect.

Of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits (they are listed here), most of us have the biggest problem with Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Covey calls this the habit of communication for good reason. The stronger our own values, the more open-minded we must be if we are to expect others to willingly engage with us, feeling safe, respected, and welcomed when they attempt to do so.

In the aftermath of the London explosions, many of us are asking ourselves questions about good versus bad values. Our disagreements about them will never be resolved if we can’t talk to each other about them, and if we stop trying.

Once a problem exists, objectivity, subjectivity and relativity all get to be a moot point. What we need are open minds, and the willingness to create a better alternative than those that may presently exist.

And guess what? These are the lessons learned of values-centered businesses.This is why I get excited about business, and why I call people in business the best movers and shakers I know.

Someone has to take the high road, and seize the responsibility for leadership.

Someone has to create a forum where calmer voices prevail.

This is not about them. This is about us and about who WE are. And we are good people.

Maybe, just maybe, thinking of our adversaries as our customers could help.

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Written the 4th of July, 2005 Red White and Blue Values.
Written November 2004 Let's define values.

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