We’re in the hospitality business and our ultimate goal is to have our guests/customers walk away feeling great about their Grooming Lounge experience and knowing it was well worth the expense. To this end, we start and finish every day figuring out just what we can do to try and WOW each person we interact with. Of course, this WOW-ing doesn’t always happen, but we like to think it’s more the rule than the exception.
All this taken into account, what’s a company to do with a patron who just can’t seem to be satisfied? One, who more often than not, is more interested in haggling or arguing than getting groomed? It’s a tough spot for a service driven company and while not a huge issue for us overall (99.9% of our guests are real gents), the actions of such a negative individual can have adverse peripheral effects on the entire operation. Just what happens is that our teams get caught focusing on the resident of “miserable-land,” zapping positive energy that should be directed toward our other audiences (guests, fellow staff and vendors). It’s a challenge faced by businesses of all sizes.
So, we’ve made the decision that sometimes, it’s unfair to our great and loyal guests/customers to focus too much attention on a select few individuals who can’t seem to be satisfied no matter what. What’s right for our business is to focus on the true gentlemen, try to exceed expectations, address any legit challenges before they arise and improve always. Don’t penalize a great guy/group for being polite.
Seem fair? Let us know.
That is absolutely fair. I used to work in clothing retail (at a store with incredibly cheap prices) and we would get these types fairly often. For the most part, the low prices were good for business because it allowed us to sell more volume and the store was always full of customers. It quickly became a popular brand for young people. However, the prices seemed to attract the types that are never satisfied. If you try to barter with an international clothing chain on a sale for 2 T-shirts for $12 (which happened to me on two occasions), we just weren’t going to waste our valuable time on you.
The customer is NOT always right and it is totally fair to “give up” on customers who are exceedingly needy, uncessarily demanding, and constanly dissatisfied. As long as you know in your heart you did gave them good service, or did everything REASONABLE to correct an error, you have to know when to sever the business relationship. I work in a service oriented profession, and I truly believe that some people were put on this earth simply to be a bane to the existence of others. And you are dead on by stating that it is unfair to your good, reasonable customers to devote time, resources, and energy to a small minority who complain for sport or because they want something for nothing. Constanly bending over backwards for bad customers also damages the morale of your staff, who will become resentful at having to do so much for somebody who does not appreciate their efforts. If you set guidelines and policies for dealing with bad customers, and allowing your staff to execute, they feel empowered and it will show in their other efforts for you.
Having worked in customer service before, I know, just like everyone else who has also done customer service, that there are some people who will argue and complain about anything. These are the people who, if given a pile of gold, will complain about the color.
My fellow co-workers and I came to the unspoken agreement that the easiest and only way to deal with these people is just to do what it takes to get them out the door and move on. Just put them out of your mind and move on.
In any business where more than ninety-eight percent of the customers leave happy, it’s a safe bet that this one jerk was just out to a dollar out of three quarters, and anything less was going to piss him off.