There’s an age-old tenet that goes “The Customer is Always Right.” In service-related businesses, CEOs and their think-tanks have morphed this into so many other versions to suit their own companies.
But I pose this question: in a world where there are customers and clients, are they, and do they always have to be king? Are their wishes so infallible that everyone leaps sans looking?
Maybe in highly service-oriented businesses like fastfoods and salons, perhaps this makes more sense. But, what if you were hired to counsel your client, to give advise or provide solutions? Is the customer always right even if you know what they want is a looming disaster?
Take for example this one entity I am dealing with. Obviously I cannot disclose details but at least I can relate the circumstances.
Customer wants a write-up, someone does charity work and provides a guide for me, which someone from the company says has been approved and must be used by the chief exec. BUT the write-up’s got gooey grammar and sentence construction and tenses need some fine-tuning, so of course, I fine-tuned. BUT someone else says nope, it must be the write-up the customer gave.
So here’s the question, should the customer be right when there’s a blatant wrong?
Wasn’t I hired to THINK for the customer? To second-guess? Play devil’s advocate and provide the check-and-balance?
I see myself as a professional who provides a service. But if we’ve got people who put egos in front of perfection and all these layers of bureaucracy and name-dropping all around, then what kind of service would I have given my clients?
I’m not being a bitch here. Perhaps griping about the old school.
At the end of the day, my service is to think and provide solutions to clients. So my methods are a bit aggressive, so I don’t beat around the bush. But that’s because I value my client’s time and resources. I work fast and I like to be expedient, I don’t like going around so many layers or having to placate so many egos when things can be much, much simpler. So I hope some people will let me do my job.
