Done as a principal with Edward J. Perrault Design Associates, a bedroom in Pebble Beach, CA, featuring custom designed furniture with an antique Japanese screen.
It was the one year anniversary of Mother’s death and it was a quiet day at work (as explained in previous posts I do design work for a major American furniture company which also entails assisting any Tom, Dong, or Jugdish who wanders in off the street). Most of the design staff sat around the office that day wondering if the doors were unlocked. And I was grateful to make it through the day with calm and grace. It was also the night of the week that I am key holder charged with locking up. And evenings mid-week are rarely eventful. But it was that particular night that caused me to consider that whoever coined “the customer is always right” was an idiot.
(And by the way, since I really don’t have nor choose to publish pictures of jerks, I have used samples of my own work, for lovely people who appreciated my abilities for design. These customers got it right.)
Within an hour of closing time one couple after another entered the store. After greeting both couples and following one upstairs the door opened again and again. From the balcony above I observed a well-dressed woman in her sixties and yet another couple—it was the busiest I had ever seen a late night. We are often swamped with customers on the weekends and I am well adept at handling a crowd.
After milling around the woman asked our receptionist for a rounded sofa; she was directed upstairs. I greeted her as she found the item and I explained that we were uncharacteristically busy. But I did take time to not only explain our custom programs but also our current promotion.
But as I made the rounds and got back to her she began to berate me that I did not spend enough time with her.
A custom Poggenpohl kitchen for a downtown Houston loft.
“Ma’am,” I said politely, “I’m here to help you now.”
“Forget it,” she replied. “My time is valuable!” Then she refused to let me on the elevator with her.
I caught up to her as she had her head in the inventory manager’s office ranting about how inadequate the guy who helped her was.
I said, “Excuse me. I’m the guy you’re talking about and I’d like to be part of this conversation.”
She went on how she bought a sofa from us eight years ago and how we needed to hire more people—her Spanx were in a real bind.
I tried once again to diffuse the escalating situation, “Ma’am, I have plenty of time to assist you now.”
“No way,” she barked. “You missed out!”
What a bitch, I thought. What does she know? Maybe if she shopped for sofas more than once every eight years we would hire more people, ran through my mind.
After a little research I learned that the phrase the customer is always right was originally coined by Harry Selfridge, founder of Selfridge’s department store, in 1909. Of course, I know all about Harry Selfridge because I watch Mr. Selfridge starring Jeremy Piven on PBS Masterpiece. At the time it was a novel yet important philosophy for successful retailers in an age when the dissemination of goods to the public underwent massive change. As shopkeepers transitioned from a system in which caveat emptor was a common maxim, the ideal advanced awareness that customer complaints should be treated seriously so that consumers did not feel cheated or deceived.
However, as quickly as the philosophy was popularized it became obvious to businessmen that the view ignores that customers can be dishonest or have unrealistic expectations which often leads to unfair burden on employees.
Gordon Bethune is a retired airline executive who is credited with turning Continental Airlines around. In 1998 he said:
Just because you buy a ticket does not give you the right to abuse our employees…
We run more than 3 million people through our books every month. One or two of those people are going to be unreasonable, demanding jerks. When it’s a choice between supporting your employees, who work with you every day and make your product what it is, or some irate jerk who demands a free ticket to Paris because you ran out of peanuts, whose side are you going to be on?
You can’t treat your employees like serfs. You have to value them…
And Bret Larson, co-founder of the telemedicine software company eVisit.com refers to the customer is always right mentality as “one of the most destructive business models.”
As a principal with Edward J. Perrault Design Associates I mixed custom beds, upholstered furniture, and Hokanson rug with antiques for a guest room in River Oaks.
We have all dealt with clients who have unrealistic expectations of what we should do or can do to make them happy, and whether explicitly or implicitly, demand more of our time and energy than others. And by attempting to satisfy them it means that abusive people get better treatment than nice people. To me, that seems like an incorrect allocation of energy.
Complainers complain. We know that these are not isolated occurrences. Are we to believe that these people are blissfully floating through life, beyond reproach, perfectly free of drama, then WHAMMO, one day out of the blue a furniture store employee fucks their world?
And face it, unless a piano falls on your head, you usually don’t die over furniture. So can we all just calm down?
As for the testy lady (my guess, she is the secretary to a bigtime Houston attorney and she still works because her husband divorced her for a younger woman 15 years ago; her kids are finished with college and the house she got in the divorce is looking a little shabby), I tried to address her complaint but she could not be satisfied. So I realized that it was time to move on from that customer to one of the others, one who was reasonable, patient, and understood our momentary deluge.
I considered that the grumpy grandma eats 365 dinners a year and if she were asked to wait 15 minutes for a table in a busy restaurant she would have no problem. But for a sofa that will last eight years or more, she was too inconvenienced to be patient in the least.
For a former CEO of Exxon I designed custom millwork to not only illuminate a dark Houstonian condominium but also to display a collection of antique jade trees.
Further, had she asked if she could make an appointment, as many people do, she would have gotten personal service and benefited from my 30 years of design experience—ten years ago she could not have gotten the time of day from me without a hefty retainer fee—with furniture made to order for years of use and enjoyment, and she would have had a good time with me while doing it.
I never felt that my life was very sheltered until I worked retail. That is when I started to lose faith in my fellow human beings. The grumpy grandma had no way of knowing that it was the year anniversary of Mother’s death. Nor should it have mattered to her. She does not know my background but took none of her valuable time to find out. But with a little patience and kindness she would have received professional guidance without sending me home with the acrid tinge of her vitriol on my mind.
And of course Harry Selfridge was not an idiot. But there are a lot of jerks out there; he just created one of the jerk’s favorite mantras.
Link to PBS.org, Mr. Selfridge