If owning my own business has taught me one thing it is this: "the customer is always right, even when she's wrong." When I first started in sales I can remember a handful of times where I would argue with a prospect, tell a customer that he or she didn't have their facts straight, or get steamed about a prospect airing the same objection for the fiftieth time. I took these matters serious and my sales suffered. Zig Ziglar has called sales "The Proud Profession," but being proud of your profession and letting your pride get in the way are two completely different things.

I'm writing this article because in the last two weeks I have been in three situations from the other side of the counter, where I was the customer, and I was treated rudely on three separate occasions. Perhaps I am totally to blame, but I seriously doubt it. Ultimately it will be those businesses that will lose out, a veterinarian's office, a satellite installation company, and a custom car customization shop. All local businesses who offered me terrible customer service; hence, businesses I will never recommend to any friends or business colleagues. And ones I WILL speak I'll of to anyone who will listen.

All of this could have been avoided if these businesses remembered the golden rule of customer service: "the customer is always right." Say your business failed to disclose a key point of a sale; a point that ultimately cost the customer (me) an extra $200. Or say an appointment time that was made for your customers dog to have a tumor removed from it's foot was forgotten by him or your secretary. This confusion causes your customer to come into the office at the wrong time on a busy day for your business. And your secretary proceeds to yell at him for not being on time. Or suppose your business ordered the wrong camper shell for a pickup. Upon installation, in order to get the tailgate to shut, the installer, rather than realizing it was the wrong shell and ordering a new one, grinds the brand new shell to fit the truck bed? Would I blame my customer for any of these things? Absolutely not, right? Well in each of these cases I was the guy that got blamed, in the case of the camper shell they tried to convince me that it was the right shell even though it was hanging over the bed of my pickup by a full inch!

Give your customers what they truly want: respect. As long as you ultimately make it easy and beneficial for your customer to do business with you they will continue coming back to you, even if you screw up once or twice. What is the lifetime value of a customer in your business? For many businesses it is the price of the first sale minus the profits lost because of that person telling his friends etc. that your service or company sucks. Businesses that struggle tend to have the worst customer service, businesses that succeed the best. What side of the fence does your business sit on?