Drawing the line with customers

I was in a large branch of a well-known bookseller this month. All I wanted was to know if it had a particular book in stock, find it, and buy it — I am what they call a “low-maintenance customer”.

When I got to the enquiries desk, however, I found myself third in line, watching the woman at the front of the queue argue with the sales assistant over whether a book existed in a later edition than 2006.

The customer insisted there was a 2007 edition (“someone told me”) but, according to the chain’s computer, the latest edition was printed in 2006. That should have been the end of the matter but she refused to budge.

Over the next 10 minutes, the sales assistant tried to communicate, in at least eight different ways, that a 2007 edition could not be ordered because it did not exist.

At one point, the customer even accused the sales assistant of not knowing how to use the database properly, to which she calmly responded: “Yes, I must be stupid, but that doesn’t change the fact that there is no 2007 edition.” The situation ended with the customer walking out.

The point of this story is that no one won. In fact, the business probably lost because, in the meantime, the man in front of me walked out, as I would have done if I had been in a hurry. Clearly, a bad customer can take up staff time and prevent them from helping others.

In ‘Customer service: a practical approach’, Elaine Harris defines “challenging customers” as those with problems, questions, fears and personalities that require us to work to achieve true communication. Her list includes

• customers with language difficulties or no understanding of your product or service

• those who are openly hostile, angry, visibly upset, impatient or non-communicative

• those who have an attitude of superiority or who imply that they are doing you a favour by doing business with you

• those who have difficulty making decisions

Chris Howland-Harris, proprietor of Ashgrove Pharmacy, Bristol, points out: “Many customers coming into a pharmacy will be feeling ill, anxious or in pain — all of which can make the best of us miserable or irritable.” And he believes that customer relations can always be mended.

In ‘Dealing with difficult people’, Roy Lilley’s advice is to avoid difficult customers in the first place, by delivering what and when you say. Similarly, Noel Baumber of Barrowbygate Pharmacy in Lincolnshire, lists good organisation, pleasant staff, remembering customers’ names, and honesty among factors that help make it difficult for patients to get the wrong impression or “to go off the deep end”.

However, in ‘Customer care excellence’, Sarah Cook’s tip is to make sure you always exceed expectations. The example she gives is that the Disney company overestimates its waiting time for rides in Disneyland by five minutes so people are not disappointed.

The flip side

To keep the peace, Mr Lilley even suggests trying a “chaperone approach” by giving a member of staff special responsibility to look after a valued but difficult customer.

But where do you draw the line? Sometimes a customer will push you to the point where you have to make a serious decision about just how far you will (or can afford to) go.

When I worked in a branch of a large multiple in London, which had a shoplifting problem, we had a “customer” who frequently returned goods (“bought in another store”) with no proof of purchase. On the sixth occasion, a member of staff refused him a refund. The customer was rude to her, then telephoned the customer services department, which promptly gave him a refund, plus some gift vouchers.

He was satisfied, but the staff felt he had been rewarded for his bad behaviour. The lesson here is that letting a customer behave badly and meeting his or her unreasonable demands can damage staff morale.

In ‘The customer comes second’, Hal Rosenbluth writes that siding with the customer no matter what indicates that a business’s management does not value its employees and that they have no right to respect. He argues that putting staff first will make them happy, and happy employees are more motivated and give better customer service.

The maxim “the customer is always right”, coined by Harry Selfridge, has almost become an axiom for the customer service industry (and for some consumers) but it does not mean you should let the customer walk all over you.

In his book ‘From worst to first: behind the scenes of continental's remarkable comeback’, Gordon Bethune, former CEO of Continental Airlines, says: “When we run into customers that we can’t reel back in, our loyalty is with our employees…

“Just because you buy a ticket does not give you the right to abuse our employees …

“When it’s a choice between supporting your employees, who work with you every day and make your product what it is, or some irate jerk who demands a free ticket to Paris because you ran out of peanuts, whose side are you going to be on?”

Customer complaints policies, therefore, should also tackle the issue of when it is not worth giving in to a customer and who is to decide this. My limits, for example, would be abusive behaviour or lying to take advantage.

According to Derek Williams, creator of the WOW! (customer service) Awards, you should not try to salvage a bad customer unless you are desperate: “Let them go to your competitors. In fact, it might even be worth paying for the taxi to take them. Your employees and your good customers will reap the benefit of getting rid of these bad ones. And so will you as the business owner.”

He adds: “If you are forced to hang on to [a bad customer], you need to agree on some rules — what can [he or she] expect from you and what are the limits. This is why communication is so central [to customer services].”

Mr Williams told Retail Round-up that when he first started in business, he thought he had to put up with every customer no matter how bad mannered or unprofitable they were. Then he realised he could not give good service to everyone:

“I had to specialise. I had to identify my target market and focus on that. And that is when my business really started to grow.”