Part of Mistake Management is dealing with customer complaints.  When I first got started in the business world, we were always told, “The customer is always right.”    And when I became a manager, I passed that same message along,  “The customer is always right!”

Over a number of years, I heard hundreds of stories from customers and customer service reps. There were times when customers lied and denied.  Sometimes they yelled and screamed.  And sometimes, they were so rude that our customer service rep ended up in tears.

I just couldn’t do it anymore. The customer is NOT always right.   And so the refrain changed to:

This approach was far better for productivity, morale and overall business performance.  It allowed us to take care of our business while still being respectful to the customer.    And if a time came that we couldn’t do both of those things, we learned the value and importance of letting a customer go.

We’ll be sharing more on this during the week and would love to hear your thoughts on it as well.

Meanwhile, we invite you to share the above quote with your team.  You can even use it as wallpaper on your computer screen.  See instructions at bottom of page.

Jan is a coach, teacher, speaker and author who is passionate about performance management and corporate culture.

Her coaching specialty is working with women in leadership to take charge more effectively, make things happen and inspire others to do the same.

Other Articles on Mistake Management:

• Theme for the Month:  Mistake Management
• Quote of the Week:  On Mistakes & Discovery
• 10+ Benefits of Masterful Mistake Management
• They Turned Lemons into Lemonade
• They Beat the Heat and Turned Lemons into Lemonade
• Yes! We Celebrate Mistakes!
• Action Action We Want Action
• Brainteaser of the Week #45
• Making Things Right at UNC
• Movie of the Week:  The Lemonade Stand

• Quote of the Week:  It’s Not Our Fault
• 10 “Mistakes” to Maximize
• Hooray for Viking Travel
• Hooray for Zane’s Cycles
• Brainteaser of the Week #46
• Satisfy your customers unless it’s hard
• Hooray for Sugarland
• Movie of the Week:  Do you have a Delores?

Post the above quote as wallpaper for your computer screen in 3 easy steps:

1. Click on the image above.
2. Right click on the image that appears.
3. On the pull down menu that appears, select “Set as desktop background”.

Voila! There’s still plenty of room on the left side of the screen for all your shortcut icons.

The above quote is from the Serious About Service section of our Quote Library.   For  152 additional motivational and instructional quotes in two different formats – for your computer screen and as a printable PDF, visit our Quote Library.

Don’t have access to the library yet? Get your password here.

Note:    If you don’t like your new wallpaper, don’t want to replace it with a quote from the Business Class Quote Library and don’t know how to get rid of it……

Go to your control panel. Select “Display”. Select “Desktop”. And then choose from the designs offered.

copyright 2010 – Business Class Inc