Many common beliefs about customer experience are misguided, based on oversimplifications or a lack of consideration for real-world constraints. In this series of posts, we debunk these myths.

CX Myth #1: The Customer Is Always Right

What’s Wrong:

Like all human beings, customers aren’t always right. They sometimes complain when the company did nothing wrong, request things that the company can not or should not provide, and periodically just make mistakes.

What’s Right:

Customers are not always right, but they always deserve the benefit of the doubt, and to be treated with respect even when they are wrong.

What You Should Do:

• Be respectful. Just like with customers, always treat employees with respect, even when they’re wrong.
• Train for conflict. Teach employees how to deal with upset customers. This includes learning not to get defensive, showing empathy, and using positive language to dampen customers’ negative emotions.
• Back away. Allow employees to disengage with customers when they are being disorderly.
• Learn from mistakes. Review situations when customers are wrong to identify (and improve) areas where your organization may be purposely or inadvertently misleading customers.
• Say goodbye sometimes. Don’t worry about losing customers who can’t—or won’t—be happy with how you run your organization.

The bottom line: Customers aren’t always right.

This blog post was originally published by Temkin Group prior to its acquisition by Qualtrics in October 2018.