ARE CUSTOMERS ALWAYS RIGHT?

Many customers have taken the advantage of the word "customers are always right" to torture their fellow human beings.

A lot of people tolerate a lot of customers just to make sales even when the customers are far from being right, provided the money finally drops from their hands, it's all good. In some circumstances, you may need to be more patient, calm, and humble to curtail some unforeseen drama from a customer.

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For any business to strive, customers remain the goal. It becomes very important that business owners learn different tactics needed to maintain a good relationship with customers if possible. Of course, no business owner wants to lose his or her customer to another when it is possible for him or her to keep that customer. But then, some customers (you and I) will always want to misuse the word "customers are always right". I am sure if you can put your legs in the seller's shoes on some occasions, you wouldn't tolerate what you expect the seller to tolerate all in the name of claiming the right.

Have you also wondered why some corporate organizations train their staff on customer relationships? The reason is obvious, no firm wants to lose clients unnecessarily, because losing clients means losing money and of course everyone needs money.

In some situations, customers are not always right but the way we approach business disagreements will determine the outcome. Let me lead you to a short story about my experience with a customer (my patient)...

It happened a few years ago in one of the military hospitals in Lagos state Nigeria where I worked as a dental Technologist. We all know that every hospital has an out of bound room for non-staffs. My profession is replacing lost teeth and other types of dental and oral treatment. This particular patient visited the clinic and I was on duty. He needed an urgent denture (teeth) replacement and so had to wait for some hours while I process it. The dental surgeon has taken the impression of his oral cavity and sent it to me to begin my job. I never knew this patient was monitoring my movement in the lab instead of waiting at the reception. I walked into the dental store room to get some dental materials and behold, the patient at my back. Hmm, I politely told him to kindly stay outside as this room is out of bounds for non-staffs. He insisted oo .. lolz, he said he would stay back and be sure that I am not planning to replace his teeth with that of a dog. Omg...dog? He said yes, that he have heard a lot about dentistry and that's why he wouldn't give me any space and he is sorry about that.

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Just when I was explaining to him why he should leave the room to the reception and ask me anything about his doubt later, MY HOD (Head of Department)SURFACED! wooooottttt!! I nearly loosed my job! The woman was mad at me for letting a patient inside the store room. At first, she asked what my plans were. She was like, am I planning to loot some dental materials and give them to the patient to sell for me out there? In fact...I became dumbfounded. An act I never conceived in my mind was presented to me as a question all because of a customer,(my patient). Only if the patient listened to me at first, it wouldn't have led to such, but now he claimed to be right. Glad the issue didn't prolong between my HOD and me after much explanation.

In this situation, my customer (my patient) saw himself as being right while obviously he was wrong but my approach towards him calmed the raging storm.

This post was inspired by the #hive learners community contest on the topic titled The customer is always Right

THANKS FOR READING!!!