At the dawn of the 20th century, Harry Gordon Selfridge (founder of the iconic London department store) etched a phrase into the retail psyche that would outlive him by many decades: “The customer is always right.” It’s a concept that’s remained steadfast for more than a century, often to the benefit of those customers—and to the chagrin of the employees who serve them.
What was once an immutable rule, however, seems to be butting up against the realities of modern-day customer service. Customer expectations appear higher than ever, and behaviour seems to have gotten worse ever since the pandemic. Yet in a landscape where one bad review can blot your online profile, how much should businesses tolerate—and what effect does this have on staff wellbeing?
The employee-customer equation
The overarching approach to customer service has always been appeasement. This is logical on one level: customers buy the products and services, so you want to keep the customers happy. This approach hits a wall when customer demands start to eat into your bottom line, but there’s a lot of scope within that to accommodate people’s needs. This means making the purchasing experience as smooth as possible, but also enabling things like returns and refunds without people feeling as though they’re being subjected to an inquisition.
There’s a line when it comes to customer appeasement, however, and it seems to be being crossed more frequently. Anyone who has worked in retail will have at least a couple of horror stories, but behaviour in public settings seems to have gotten worse, with staff bearing the brunt of this. A survey by Usdaw reported that nearly 90% of retail staff in the UK have experienced verbal abuse from customers, and 12% have been physically assaulted. Online, meanwhile, behaviour can be even more toxic, whether due to the lack of repercussions, or frustrations about the quality of online customer service itself.
This has put many businesses in an increasingly precarious position. Customer-facing employees and customer service personnel are facing more difficult circumstances and the present danger of being replaced by AI and automation, whether that’s kiosks in shops or AI bots online. Meanwhile, bad behaviour feels as though it’s being normalised, shifting the baseline as to what employees might be expected to deal with. The result may be an unhappy and volatile workforce—with an inevitable impact on the service they are going to deliver.
When the customer isn’t right
People will always push their luck, and take their frustrations out on people who don’t deserve it. There are customers who will attempt to return items long past the return window, who will berate staff for circumstances outside their control, or who will demand discounts for imaginary faults. A minority will always use the “customer is always right” mantra as carte blanche for poor behaviour.
The issue is when employees aren’t equipped to deal with this. A lack of training or preparation to deal with customers being unruly inevitably leads to mistakes being made in handling them, or employees trying to accommodate customers and deescalate situations that should result in customers being ejected or reprimanded. Sometimes, a situation which was not initially hostile can end up escalating because an employee lacks the training to prevent this.
All of this inevitably leads to demoralised and unhappy employees. Not only are these interactions stressful and time-consuming, they can also lead to staff worrying about their own reaction, and what is appropriate in a given circumstance. It’s also easy for employees to feel like they are taking the brunt of issues that emanate from further up the chain. If product defects or problems due to short staffing lead to angry customers, the customers will blame the staff—and the staff may end up blaming management.
Building a supportive culture
There are numerous examples of this phenomenon, where companies demand great customer service while also failing to provide the right environment for it to flourish. Pret A Manger for example once revealed that part of the reason for their high quality output was rewarding staff who exhibited genuine friendliness and teamwork. When workers then began to voice concerns about intense workloads and low pay, it undermined the value of those incentives. Staff went on to form a union, and the company would issue three pay rises in just one year, helping to rebuild trust.
A different case is John Lewis. While the ‘never knowingly undersold’ promise was briefly put on ice, the company remains renowned for its customer service. Yet the change in public behaviour has forced even them to rethink the boundaries of what staff should endure in the name of their longstanding reputation. In 2023, the company reportedly issued internal guidelines encouraging staff to escalate issues involving abusive customers, with the backing of management promised to any employees who had to take a firm but respectful stand.
This kind of policy-making is a good starting point, and all forward-facing businesses should draw some red lines. But it isn’t adequate alone to address the problem, either with customer behaviour or the wellbeing of staff. Employees need to be incentivised to provide the highest levels of customer service, but they also need to be trained—giving them the tools and the motivation to represent your business in the best way possible.
Protecting and empowering employees
According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report, companies with highly engaged employees outperform competitors by 21% in profitability. Not coincidentally, they also tend to score higher in customer satisfaction. Being engaged in customer-facing roles means being equipped to deal with rowdy customers, allowing them to make decisions in the confidence that they both know what to do and have the backing of the business.
This starts with proper training. Once policies are in place on where the red lines are for customer behaviour, these should be drilled into employees, with practical examples highlighting the difference between tolerable and unacceptable behaviour. Staff should also be trained to handle difficult situations effectively, and diffuse them wherever possible. Our Dealing with Customer Complaints and Confrontation course is perfect for this—not just developing strategies for dealing with problematic customers, but explaining why complaints happen, and developing core listening skills that will help them with customer service more generally.
Another important aspect of the training is compartmentalising work and personal emotions. It can be easy to feel like you are being personally attacked when taking the brunt of customer complaints, having a negative impact on your mental health and job satisfaction. Learning how to stay cool under pressure is valuable, but so is isolating the criticism you’re receiving from yourself. Understanding that your brand is being attacked rather than yourself can give you a clear mind to tackle the problem, and turn a negative situation into an opportunity to win someone back.
And finally…
There will always be a tension between keeping customers happy and supporting staff. What’s important is that businesses resist the temptation to sacrifice long-term culture for short-term appeasement. A viral negative review can be damaging, but a revolving door of staff is far worse in the long run.
It is possible to achieve a balance between treating customers with respect and kindness, while refusing to tolerate abuse or impossible demands. It involves listening to your employees, and giving them the training and autonomy to handle situations with integrity and confidence. Most importantly, it involves acknowledging that your staff aren’t just assets—they’re people with feelings, needs, and an enormous role in the perception of your business.
