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The Customer is not Always Right!

Author: Jeff Murphy Author Ranking Blue | Posted: 31-03-2008 | Comments: 0 | Views: 5 | Rating:  (50) Article Popularity - Green (?) Got a Question? Ask.
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So, what does it mean, "The Customer Is NOT Always Right!"? It means simply this. Customers are humans and humans make mistakes. We must treat them with respect, listen and consider seriously their complaints, input, and ideas, but we must also demonstrate, with proper candor, the truth about a given situation and help them discover that truth. In other words, we cannot always take customers' feedback cart blanch. It may not provide the best result and possibly destroy any respect the customer has for you and any hopes for a mutually beneficial relationship. Allow me to illustrate with an example.

I recently had a customer purchased a solution from our company. It was the first time this client had worked with us and we wanted to make an excellent impression. We delivered early and the project was up and running quickly. The customer was elated. After about the week the solution began to have some intermittent problems and not function properly according to the customer. This solution relied heavily on the environment in which it was placed to run properly and the customer demanded a complete revamp of the solution immediately. Now, if I had taken the attitude of "The Customer Is Always Right!", I would have provided a new project solution right away. But, that would have proven disastrous.

Once we had a consultant inspect the situation, we discovered, the environment in which it was running was incorrectly configured by the customer and a change needed to be made to the customer's environment. If we had provided another solution, the same issue would have occurred, creating delays in performance, more customer dissatisfaction and frustration with our company. As it turns out, the client now has great respect for our knowledge and understanding of the complete system and has since ordered additional projects for other environments. Please note; we had to tread lightly and not shove this in the customer's face. We had to swallow our pride and allow the customer to "discover" he had made a mistake. If you can do this well, WOW, the results you will achieve!

The customer is not always right, but they are always the customer and should be treated as such!

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Jeff MurphyAbout the Author:

Jeff Murphy is President of Halo Group, Inc. a technology consulting firm specializing in customer relationship management, custom applications and integration. He has over 20 years of experience in leadership, business development, and operations. For more information call (502) 657-6469 or on the web at www.halogrouponline.com.

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