Customer is NOT always right!

... yet the supplier is also not always smart!
For being with a distribution company for the past 7 years, here's what I have crystalised.

I have always kept myself so closely inclined to the services industry. Ever since I had to work in the supermarket in form 4 as a sales assistant during school holidays and had to handle many analistic customers made me wondered how I could make them be more reasonable and treat shopworkers the same way they treat their neighbours.

I really blame it on the Business books which taught us 'Customer is always right', which stupefy the believers, it discourages business owners from being creative and lose the chance of getting the credits they really deserve. I think the right way to put it is 'Customer is the King/Boss', which means he/she has a tendency to make mistakes too although the salesperson has made the best recommendations. Yet, they'll say nasty things to you for trying to be more intelligent than them but at the end it is not you who has to walk out of the shop, it's him!.

This world if full of minute innovations, new things constantly pop up and even wiped out, especially tech gadgets. And let's face it, customers (we) don't always know what they (we) want. Sometimes they think they want something, but when you give it to them exactly as they've requested, they're dissatisfied. Why? Because their decisions based on a lot less info than you (the salesperson), with your training and experience, have.

But we do realise how we develop loyalty towards certain suppliers or service providers; for sharing expertise, talent, judgment, passion to their work, helping us make informed choices and understand what we are getting, not only because they do as asked. Believe in the power of collaborative decision making, the key to it is communication.

Yes, you don't get smart sellers here often. But remember, most of the time, you get more by being courteous and inquisitive. It's not just the salesperson who always need to treat the customers with a smile. In our country the salesman is the one who always get nasty treatment from their customer. Do you know that most Bangla KFC workers are degree holders? Do you know that most taxi drivers worked in corporate companies? Part time pharmacy assistants are university graduates? Hey, the nasi lemak seller infront of my HQ is a Wanita UMNO member! But even if they are not properly qualified, treat them like you treat your neighbour. Hey! Especially when it comes to the sellers in your own neighbourhood which you rather visit often. Tell them how they can improve their business so not just you but the whole township benefits from it.

Carry yourself like a 'bodoh sombong', you'll be quickly dismissed with whatever it is in your hands. Carry yourself like a wise and courteous customer, you'll get a chance to feel like a real King in every shop you walk into by the salesmen whom you made them feel equally important, then, even if the salesperson is not that smart, they will try to provide the best thing for you.

After all, this is Asia, when we are kind to someone once, they'll be kind to you 10 folds more, if we are nasty to someone once, they'll pray that you'll die a horrible death! (Yeah, I thought of that sometimes)

If you want to learn more on strategies in communicating with customers, try getting a book written by Rhonda Abrams "Secrets and Strategies and Wear Clean Underwear".