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Superior Support

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1–10 of 26 posts

Re: Superior Support

#5
Rule #1: "The customer is always right: no exceptions".

This is absolutely flat-out wrong. Bad customers will chew up your support time, engineering resources, and mental health.

The sooner it is recognized that some customers are simply toxic, the sooner you can get rid of them. If you fail to even entertain the notion that customers might be wrong, you're doing yourself and your employees a huge disservice.

Re: Superior Support

#6

Rule #1: "The customer is always right: no exceptions". This is absolutely flat-out wrong. Bad customers will chew up your support time, engineering resources, and mental health. The sooner it is recognized that some customers are simply toxic, the sooner you can get rid of them. If you fail to even entertain the notion that customers might be wrong, you're doing yourself and your employees a huge disservice.

I can understand where you're coming from. From a support mentality they have to be viewed as being right, although admittedly there are some customers that are probably worth losing in the long run.

The idea behind that point was more to push the team to get things right and go that extra mile to help the customer. If they're rude though then the rule doesn't apply.

Re: Superior Support

#7
Whether or not the rule that the "customer is always right" applies is context-dependent. In an educational environment, for example, we can't embrace this principle; it is contrary to our mission to leave people with misinformation that can affect their studies or research.

I think it can be reworded to be useful guiding principle in more environments if you're willing to parse it more carefully. Perhaps something like "The customer's perception is more important than yours."?

Re: Superior Support

#8

Rule #1: "The customer is always right: no exceptions". This is absolutely flat-out wrong. Bad customers will chew up your support time, engineering resources, and mental health. The sooner it is recognized that some customers are simply toxic, the sooner you can get rid of them. If you fail to even entertain the notion that customers might be wrong, you're doing yourself and your employees a huge disservice.

I can understand where you're coming from. From a support mentality they have to be viewed as being right, although admittedly there are some customers that are probably worth losing in the long run. The idea behind that point was more to push the team to get things right and go that extra mile to help the customer. If they're rude though then the rule doesn't apply.

From my perspective, customers should be viewed as having great value. This is an entirely different thing from saying that the customer is always right (which by the way contains the additional team-killing undercurrent of suggestion that management will always back the customer over their own employees).

Some customers will use vast amounts of your time and constantly expect you to accommodate them. Especially in a small operation, the customers that cause disproportionate expense are toxic. These are the ones that you need to actively fire, and the assumption that every customer is a good customer (or that every customer is right) quite simply precludes this option.

Re: Superior Support

#9

Whether or not the rule that the "customer is always right" applies is context-dependent. In an educational environment, for example, we can't embrace this principle; it is contrary to our mission to leave people with misinformation that can affect their studies or research. I think it can be reworded to be useful guiding principle in more environments if you're willing to parse it more carefully. Perhaps something l…

I work for an organization with excellent customer support, and I completely agree. It is phrased badly, albeit in the standard way. I'd go even further to say the #1 rule is "listen to your customer" and not make judgments about right or wrong.

If you listen to your customer you will have a better chance of solving the problem in the correct way.

Re: Superior Support

#10
"The customer is always right - no exceptions"

Well, if I am a customer and I am asking for something stupid I'd rather have this pointed out politely and then let me make an informed decision. Indeed, some of the best examples I've had of customer service is where the salesperson politely pointed out that what I was wanting to buy might not be such a great idea after all.

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