The Customer Is Not Always Right: My Unpopular Opinion

I want to talk about something that will probably get me cancelled. Or at least get me some very aggressive comments. But here we go.

The customer is not always right.

And I'm judging this entirely by myself. I am a very frequent client of salons, restaurants, shops -- I am, genuinely, a professional spender of money, and I love spending it well. Which means I have also, many times, been the one being narrow-minded and frankly rude toward the people providing my services.

Before you curse me -- let me explain.

I have a demanding job. I have a significant psychological gap that I am actively working on with my beloved Vika, my therapist, who I love with my whole heart. She taught me to hold the reins, and now I have five seconds -- five seconds before I unleash my dissatisfaction or negativity onto another human being. Yes. I can be a real piece of work. No, that is not an excuse. But it is at least honest.

So from personal experience I can say: the customer is absolutely not always right. Sometimes the customer has completely lost it. Because the customer may have had a problem somewhere, or didn't sleep, or someone sent them something hurtful in a DM -- and all of that lands directly on your business, simply because you were the first one they reached.

And god forbid you argue or push back. You're done.

I can walk into a salon after three calls, two deadlines, and one person who said something that stung. And I will sit there with a face that makes the nail technician think she has personally destroyed my livelihood. She's painting my nails. Just painting my nails, folks.

That's when I remember Vika. Five seconds. Five seconds between what you feel and what you say. It is not magic -- it is just a pause where all of my personal growth over the last two years quietly lives. And in that pause, I find the understanding that the person across from me -- the stylist, the receptionist, the waiter, the courier -- they also showed up to work today. They also didn't sleep well. They also have their own Vika, or don't, and the second one is actually worse.

Now let's talk about business. I'm not referring to the moments where you genuinely messed up -- in that case, yes, you take the ball and go fix it. You butter your client up. That's actually a phrase a friend of mine used over coffee. She said: I love being buttered -- as in, butter, the English word. Spread on, kept warm, taken care of. That's what she meant.

Me too. Everyone loves being truly heard. That is not 'customer service' -- that is basic human respect that has somehow become a premium feature.

But when someone is spreading something distinctly unpleasant all over your business and you respond with -- here's a voucher. That's where I get a level of cringe so deep I can physically feel something dying. A voucher. Ten percent off. For the evening you ruined, the nerves you cost me, the whole concept of what today was supposed to be.

The customer is not always right. Sometimes the customer is me on a bad day. And the best thing a good business can do is not let me, on a bad day, ruin what we have. Hold onto me. Not with a voucher -- but with this: we see that something went wrong, and we are here.

Just here.

Because I will come back. I always come back to the places that are not afraid of me -- but that receive me. Even like this.