Are customers always right?

Source

I grew up hearing this cliché that "Customers are always right". I didn't know what that meant until I started running my own business. This saying can be true and it can also be false. First understand that the reason why you start a business is because you want to earn. And you cannot earn if you don't have customers coming to buy what you sell or simply put, you cannot make money if your services are not needed.

So it is very okay to say that whether a business will bloom or not depends on the customers. It is the customer that will make your business grow or fall if you don't handle them carefully. Hence, the reason why the saying is true. There is a shop in my street that sells fake things all the time. I have had my own share of that likewise others. Now a good number of persons don't even go there anymore to patronize this man. Every time you pass the shop, the shop is always full and the man is always sleeping because there are little or no customers coming to him.

A customer is a very powerful tool for your business. Do you know that a little complain of your business by a customer can completely ruin your business if care is not taken? You need to understand this fact as a business owner and try as much as you can to hold every customer whether big or small very tight if you still want to stay in business.

For me, customers are not always right. First of all, you cannot satisfy every one and cater for their needs all at once. What I may find appealing, you may not find it same. So this is where intelligence from the business owner comes in. I have seen situations where a customer walked into a supermarket and started shouting because the shop attendant asked her to re-park her vehicle. She shouted at him that day so much that it got other people angry. Now the thing is that the customer came to buy so many things and if you are the manager of the supermarket, what will you do to retain this kind of customer?

Well, this is where empathy comes in. You need to appeal to their emotions. Listen to them, and calmly explain why they need to adjust to your own terms and conditions of your business. By so doing, you have massage their ego and you have won too.

Another thing to do is never accept and abrupt behavior from a customer. These days things have changed and allowing a customer to come and insult you in your business premises is wrong. Some people just have bad character and you need to tell them that what they did is wrong too. If you swallow a bad attitude because you believe in this cliché that your customers are always right, then be rest assured that you are just in a pipeline of ruining your business. Just because you want to keep a customer doesn't mean you should accept whatever rubbish you see.

However, handle everything with wisdom. It is not easy to run a business so you must use your wisdom at all times.

Thanks for reading

Posted Using LeoFinance ^Beta