by Greg Blencoe
A while back, I had a brief conversation with a woman I know. Near the end of the conversation, she told me that her husband had recently gotten a new job. She was extremely happy about this, because he would be working in a much better environment. In previous conversations, she had told me that he was very unhappy with his job.
Her husband’s previous job was one where he was a manager and had to deal with customers a lot. And many customers were not pleasant to deal with. She told me customers were often very rude to her husband. While not surprising since most of us know how a difficult work situation can affect things at home, she mentioned that his job had a negative effect on their relationship. This was really sad to hear.
While I’m a strong believer in providing excellent customer service, this situation reminded me that I don’t think the customer is always right. I don’t think it’s acceptable for employees to constantly have to put up with customers that are rude, unpleasant, disrespectful, verbally abusive, etc.
I believe that managers should be allowed by their manager to politely let customers that are treating employees this way know that this is not acceptable.
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