How customer service works

I've had shitty managers side with the customer and yell at me even though they knew it was wrong just because—say it with me!—"The customer is always right!" They were literally *that* worried about one asshole customer not coming back. I say good riddance because bad customers are like toddlers: you give into their fit once and you will never be able to stop.

pretty sure i ranted the last time somebody posted this, but there is a GIGANTIC difference between having a stupid customer and being a sarcastic rude douche to them, and having a stupid customer and doing what you can for them. Case 1: Customer does something stupid such as ask for ice at the bottom. Employee makes smart ass remark that offends the customer. They deserve to be fired, its their own fault for being douchey to the customer. Case 2: Customer wants specific brand of whatever kuzuri is talking about. Employee kindly lets customer know they don't carry that brand. Customer flips out and boss is called. Employee did fine there isnt much else to do.

The reason the boss probably got mad at you was because they have to deal with a lot of stupid employees too. Lot of the time it IS the employees fault. Thing is, if you yell at the employee, the customer is satisfied and leaves and you can find out later that the employee was actually right, everything goes on as normal. Yell at the customer instead, they are more offended and leave and yes don't shop there anymore so its "1 bad customer" as windscryer put it. However, they are gonna bitch about it to everybody they know. Depending on how bad it was and how bad they can make it out to be, its very likely they will pull other customers into the "I'm never shopping there again" pool and now all the sudden that 1 incident is 10 lost customers, or maybe even more. With as many options as customers have these days, 90% of the time they can easily go somewhere else so customer relations is a bigger and bigger concern.

Its also been proven that bad customer reviews make a HUGE impact on how other customers perceive the place, even if they have never shopped there. To make matters worse, its also been proven that customers are MUCH more likely to leave a bad review if things were bad than to leave a good review if things are good. Think its somewhere along the lines of 10:1. I mean think about it, when is the last time you went somewhere and had a decent time and thought "hm, I'm gonna go online and leave a good review about this place". Unless everything was just fantastically amazing and it blew your mind, its rare. However, even little things that are bad can make a person say "wow I can't believe they do this, I'm gonna go online and complain about it so others don't have to witness it too" That happens all the time, and THAT is why "the customer is always right"