The customer is not always right

Call centre work is one area of customer service that can be difficult. Photo / 123rf

OPINION

I used to work in customer service. It was mostly call centre work, which I hated in a lot of ways, but it taught me some valuable lessons.

I also read a lot of social media platforms in which there are plenty of examples of bad behaviour, both on the part of the customer and the service person.

I believe that every job has its value, no matter how boring it might seem to some people, or how “low on the food chain” it is. We have yet to see AI take over supermarkets to the extent that we have robots pick and pack. Personally, I prefer the self-checkout, only because I often feel awkward talking to the customer service people – that’s mostly out of shyness than anything else, but when I do go to a manned checkout, I try to be polite.

I’ve heard of people who look down on cashiers, or those who work in restaurants as beneath them, but here’s the thing: they provide a valuable service. For example, if there weren’t wait staff in restaurants, or chefs, for that matter, you might as well be cooking at home.

I’m far from perfect. I get frustrated when things go wrong and I hate it when I feel like the person on the other end of the phone is not listening to me, or is so stuck on keeping to the script that they won’t consider any other option, but I know just how upsetting it is to be abused and sworn at. When I was at my last call centre job, I was abused fairly frequently.

I’m sure there’ll be people saying “Get over it” and that it’s not that bad. I’ve often seen a comment on social media that those who claim any customer service job is easy should have to experience it. It’s similar to walking a mile in another person’s shoes to understand what they’re going through. Not entirely possible, of course, but it’s also said that you never know what someone else’s life is like.

The old saying about the customer is always right isn’t actually true. Sometimes the customer is wrong.

Customer service is a two-way street. If you want respect you need to be respectful.

Honestly, there should be policies that the more a customer demands, the less they can get, rather than just giving in and letting them think they can get away with the bad behaviour.

I know company policies include expectations that the service person must be polite at all times, but they should also have the right to defend themselves if a customer is belligerent.

On the other hand, a service person needn’t be rude if the customer is doing their best to be polite.

For instance, I once bought something from a retailer in the US and tried to give them the correct change. My eyesight is really bad, and I was having trouble finding the right coins. The lighting didn’t help. The cashier looked rather annoyed, which didn’t help make me feel less flustered.

No matter which side of the customer service desk I was, I remember both the difficult interactions and the really positive ones. I wish I could say the latter was the more frequent.

Leanne Warr has been editor of the Bush Telegraph since May 2023 and a journalist since 1996. She re-joined NZME in June 2021.