Are customers always right? On the Principles of Applying Public Relations

The earliest source of the phrase "the customer is always right" should be Wal-Mart, which built its first store in China in Honghu, Shenzhen. On the wall of his house, there is a slogan that everyone who enters the store can see: "1, the customer is always right;" 2. If the customer makes a mistake, please refer to Article 1. Founder Sam Wharton said, "In fact, customers can fire everyone in our company. They just need to spend their money elsewhere. "An important criterion to measure the success of an enterprise is to satisfy customers. -"The Satisfaction of Our God". Because of Wal-Mart's influence in the industry, this sentence spread all over the country. Therefore, in many enterprises, slogans such as "customer is always right", "customer first" and "service first" are called their own purposes by many enterprises and appear in the advertising creativity of many enterprises.

Because of professional reasons, I have done a questionnaire survey on the service of middle and senior leaders in mobile companies. One of the questions is "Do you think customers are always right?" There are three answers "Yes, not necessarily, no". According to the collected analysis, 75% of managers choose "not necessarily, not".

I sorted out and summarized the reasons they explained, mainly in the following five aspects:

1, the enterprise should bear undue losses.

If all customers are always right, it will be reflected in the product. If a customer thinks there is something wrong with the product, then according to this principle, it must be returned, and the enterprise will lose money. "If the enterprise comes up with a good product and the customer says it is a fake, can it be said that the customer is always right?

2, can not accommodate difficult customers.

Some customers are very difficult, always like to make trouble and find fault with enterprises. ""If the customer uses the wrong product, it is the customer's fault. " "If the customer is deliberately' incorrect', the company can't help it." "We should take different measures for those unruly and picky customers." "Enterprises should prevent customers with ulterior motives from blindly accommodating. "

3, can not use the customer's point of view to control the enterprise.

"The customer's perspective is biased towards personal interests, and enterprises should not use the customer's perspective to influence their own planning." "Enterprises and consumers should have a reciprocal relationship, and correctly handling the relationship between enterprises and consumers should follow the principles of mutual trust and mutual respect."

An enterprise can't satisfy all its customers.

"Because customers have different needs, it is difficult to satisfy all of them." "Enterprises can't satisfy all the requirements of customers, only that customers are always right under certain conditions." "The premise is that the opinions put forward by customers are correct and we can achieve it through hard work." Enterprises should improve product quality and do a good job of after-sales service to win the trust of customers, instead of unilaterally following the principle that customers are always right.

5. Let customers give up unreasonable demands.

"For those customers who maliciously attack the company, the company retaliates precisely to maintain the company's image." "Our job is to try to get customers to give up unreasonable demands." "We should educate our customers to establish a correct concept of consumption." "Customers are God, but God sometimes makes mistakes." "Consumers should also follow the laws of market economy."

We can see that there are many opinions on this issue, and none of the above analysis is wrong. It is possible to continue the investigation and get more answers. However, the purpose of our survey is not to distinguish how many people agree and how many people disagree. The crux of the problem is: since "the customer is always right" has been hung on the wall, or printed as a manual and distributed to service personnel, but there is no unified thought on this issue among the middle and high-level enterprises, how can front-line personnel do a good job in customer service in this management atmosphere without unified thought? Just like the well-known saying "customer is God", people discuss whether this sentence is right or wrong, and some even come to the conclusion that foreigners call "customer is God" because they believe in Christianity. I still don't understand the significance of our discussion about whether this sentence is right or wrong. As service workers, foreigners make China people remember the words "the customer is always right" and "the customer is God", which makes our consumers very happy. And what about our domestic service enterprises? What impression did you leave on the consumers in China? What did you say to make people feel good? In this respect alone, we are inferior to foreigners. Since today is about the differences between China and the West on this issue, let's take a look at how western enterprises answer this question.

One day, an old lady was carrying a tire. She came to the Noztrum chain store and asked for a refund. She insisted that this tire was bought here, but in fact this store never sold this kind of tire again. The salesman politely explained to her that this kind of tire has never been sold in our shop. You must be mistaken. "No," the old lady insisted, "I must have bought it here. I will return it as long as I am not satisfied." Finally, after discussing with the supervisor, the salesperson decided to accept the "own tire" and returned the full amount to the customer with a good attitude. The old lady left with satisfaction, and since then, she has been shopping in this shop again and again. The old lady became a loyal customer of Knoz Trum chain store. The service tenet of Noztrum chain store is "the customer is always right, and we will do everything possible for the customer". In this unforgettable story, the value of the event lies in that Noztrum solved the customer's problem in a new way when the customer was really wrong. But the company still decided that it was the old lady's fault. I just never mentioned it to the old lady again.

As can be seen from the above typical cases, the following points are very enlightening to us.

1, "The customer is always right" can be hung on the wall, why not? Is there any harm? At least make customers look comfortable. Why not do something that will make customers feel comfortable? What is more important than simply making customers feel comfortable?

2. "The customer is always right" is not enough. This is for customers. What enterprises have to do is how to satisfy my customers. In line with the company's service strategy, excellent foreign companies are improving all aspects that may improve customer service. For example, IBM has three basic beliefs: respect for everyone; Provide the best service; Pursue excellent works. These three beliefs run through all the work norms and business activities of IBM. IBM specially selected excellent business personnel as assistant directors for three years. For three years, he was only responsible for one job, that is, solving any customer complaints or problems within 24 hours. Wal-Mart's success is more than just a few slogans hanging on the wall.

Even if the customer is really wrong, what we need to do is to meet the customer's needs as much as possible. In the long run, the benefits far outweigh your efforts, because we all know that customers will spread dissatisfied things around. Even if the enterprise meets a difficult customer, how many difficult customers will there be? Will they endanger the normal operation of your enterprise? After so many years of consulting work, I found that most customers are dissatisfied because of our slow speed in solving problems. Some problems may not be solved immediately, but communication with customers is not timely, which greatly increases customer dissatisfaction. Most of the customer's dissatisfaction is caused by some minor problems.

4. Enterprises should establish an effective authorization mechanism, and customers' dissatisfaction is influenced by time. Even if it can be solved, we should know the specific time to solve it. Therefore, enterprises should establish an effective authorization mechanism, and don't ask for instructions from the east and report to the west because of some minor problems.

"Huainan is an orange, Huaibei is an orange", and many excellent foreign ideas are always out of shape after being acquired by domestic enterprises. Slogans such as "the customer is always right" and "people-oriented" frequently appear in various texts of domestic enterprises. However, apart from the slogan hanging on the wall and endless customer service training for front-line employees, enterprises have not seen specific service measures being implemented. I wonder when these vigorous service shows will calm down.