Although it seems intuitive that agreeing on the customer is always right is good for business, in customer support it’s actually not.
You are the expert in customer support
In relation to customer support, you are the expert. They are contacting you specifically because they need assistance. Lots of customers love to lead you in their direction, give you evidence for issues, or tell you exactly where the problem is. The issue comes when they are wrong (which is what happens usually if they think they know the answer). Make sure that you don’t make concessions or let the customer lead you down paths that are wrong. Customers are right many of times, but it’s the customer service agent’s role to listen, prove, lead, and teach.
It gives your customers more power than you
Following a philosophy of customers always being right makes customers more powerful than they should be. Customer support agents could let customers lead them down a wrong direction because they feel entitled, or agents give customers more leverage than not because of metrics you put in place. It’s a fine balance but putting trust in your customer support agents in knowing that they are leading the customer down the right path is ultimately the right decision for them and your customer.
Bad customers are bad customers
Bad customer can be bad customers. In all of my years of customer support experience, this happens more than you might think, and we’ve had to let bad customers go because they just cost too much money to the business. How do you know when you have a bad customer?
– All of your customer support agents talk very badly about them.
– They escalate almost every issue.
– They talk badly about your company even though you’ve done everything possible to fix their issues (if any).
– They raise the same issues over and over again.
– They cost you more money than the revenue they bring in.
Sometimes in order to grant good customer support, you just have to cut the string and let the balloon go.
