The customer is never right

The customer used to always be right. Now the customer is never right. How did we get here?

It would take an entire book to answer that question (hey, there’s an idea!) but in the meantime, I wanted to take a closer look at those of you who are in denial about the whole thing. You know who you are.

You’re the guy at the Apple store who told me with a straight face that iTunes was a great system, even though I couldn’t load the movies that I own to it. No, he said, I needed to buy the film again, and then I could play it on my iPod. He assured me I would love watching my iTunes-approved movies like that.

Well, that’s the problem: I already love iTunes. I just want to load my movies — the ones I already paid good money for — and watch them when I travel. But you can’t do that, thanks to copyright laws, forcing me to become a pirate, which is an incredible hassle.

I am right. Apple, its employee, and copyright law, is wrong. I own the movies, and I should be able to watch them wherever I want.

Here’s another customer-is-never-right moment: Yesterday, I called AAA to tow my car, which needed a new alternator. But it wouldn’t come to my rescue until I paid it for another membership.

Why? I wasn’t with the car. The rest of my family was. I paid quickly; they had me over a barrel.

About half the commenters on my travel blog agreed that AAA could have done better. The other half said it was my own fault, that I should have read AAAs terms.

They’re right, I should have known better.

But being right and doing the right thing are not always the same thing. Customers don’t always have the time to study the fine print, and instead absorb the broad promises made by companies — the warranties and guarantees of superb customer service.

I had been left with the impression that AAA would always be there for me, and it wasn’t.

I am the customer, and I am right.

Not everyone will agree with me. Some of you reading this — maybe many for you — think rules are rules, and that a company is only required to do what’s in its contract. I respect that point of view, but I don’t subscribe to it.

Corporate America has created a gap between expectation and reality, between advertisement and contract. They exploit that gap to their advantage. We should not help them.

I refuse to live in a world where, thanks to fancy lawyering, the company is always right.

Think about it. You probably don’t want to, either.

(Photo: Beni moto/Flickr Creative Commons)

  • http://roteague.wordpress.com Robert

    Fortunately, I don’t have that problem. I use the Zune Marketplace; it allows me to download anything I’ve purchased from them as often as I need to.

  • Emanuel Levy

    Chris, what if you were out with a friend who doesn’t have AAA and their car broke down? Would you ask AAA to service the car because you were in it but the owner?

    If so that’s because AAA service as you now know follows the member not their car. I don’t have AAA not but I used to and I feel buy offering you a half year plan the agent did you a favor rather than give you no options but to pay for a costly tow.

  • Bunnee

    I’ve had AAA for years and I’ve always purchased a membership for each family member. You do get a price break for a spouse and kids under 26 (after that, they need their own membership). I know the kids have used their membership when a friend’s car had problems, so I guess I don’t feel it is unreasonable for the AAA to require the presence of a member to get the services. Frankly, this all sounds a bit like some of the people who write to you expecting every emergency in their lives to be a reason for a travel company (airline, hotel, whatever) to give them a freebie or a pass rather than stand by the terms outlined for the purchase. I don’t think the company is always right, but neither do I think the customer is always right.

  • Jacquelyn

    I hear you. Even though everyone else likes to point out the rules. I think that can be a sport sometimes – people who like to tell you why you are wrong, and they’re usually right. But did that help anyone?
    Sometimes companies should just do the right thing, and what they would have gained in this instance is your loyalty, and word of mouth advertising, which is what seems a dying art form to companies, but I will tell you that a bad rep follows a company whether it is deserved or not. Whether or not the company held fast to its rules, and it is well within its rights to do so, a customer left wanting tells more people than those who are not.

  • Meredith

    Chris,

    Copyright law says you are entitled to one copy for Archival Purposes. iTunes is just trying to soak you for more money than they are entitled to.

  • Eric

    @ Chris

    “The customer is always right”

    I have worked with the general public in a retail type setting for 20+ years now. The customer is NOT always right. Once you go down that path you wind up bankrupt.

    That being said, my job is to satisfy customers and make them happy whenever I can so I go to great strides and have gone way above and beyond the call of duty over the years to help people. There are plenty of people out there that are looking for nothing but a free “score” and will take you for every penny possible if you let them.

    Help the customer, make exceptions, exceed their expectations! But….to say that they are always right and that we should do anything they say? That’s unrealistic.

  • David Z

    I once learned a valuable variation of the customer-is-always-right verbiage. It goes something like the customer is always right…

    …until you draw the line.

    Neither the customer nor the company is always right. It depends on where the two can possibly…possibly…agree on.

  • SirWired

    The customer is not, and never has been, ALWAYS right. Anyone who says otherwise has never run a customer-facing business. The customer is right more often than not, but to treat customers as if they can do no wrong is a recipe for lost profits, and a great way to attract unreasonable customers. Thin-margin businesses such as airlines, hotels, and car rentals simply cannot afford to cater to every customer’s whim. It’s a one-way ticket to an annoyed customer service rep if you do quote “The Customer is Always Right.”

    Yes, making reasonable exceptions to reasonable (or unreasonable) policies is a great tool to ensure customer satisfaction. But making unreasonable exceptions to reasonable policies is a horrible way to run a business, and it has far-reaching implications.

  • flutiefan

    Eric, David Z, and SirWired have it spot-on. i wrote something similar, but strangely it was never posted. hmmmmm.

  • Dave D

    Actually, the customer IS always right – unless they SAY they are – it is only then that they are WRONG.

  • Firebrand

    Your family was in a tight spot, and you felt helpless trying to save them. Your excellent mediating skills weren’t helping and you had become…just another consumer. You’re in the other side’s shoes. Don’t fight it and don’t put on the cloak of self-righteousness. Feel it, walk around in it, absorb the lesson, and use it to become an even better advocate. This horse is dead.

  • Will

    The customer is never wrong, but they aren’t always right.

  • Jerry

    I’ve also been a member of AAA since 1988, but I’ve known from the beginning that the services are tied to the member, and not to the car. I was quite surprised when I first learned that AAA would come to help even if I was just a passenger in a friend’s car.

    After I got married, I made sure to get my wife an associate membership so she’d be covered too. And when AAA changed their standard towing benefit to 5 miles, I upgraded to AAA Plus so that I could be towed up to 100 miles without paying extra at the time of the incident.

    Frankly, I think it was generous of AAA to allow you to pay the $30 (or $15!) after the fact. That’s like signing up for insurance after you have an accident.

    I agree with you about iTunes, though. I wish they would make importing movies you’ve purchased elsewhere as easy as they do ripping CDs into your iTunes library. But at least there are other tools available to make it work, and I don’t feel the least bit guilty about using them.