The Customer Isn’t Always Right Or Even Close
I was talking to an entrepreneur who had established a terrific retail business. He was making money, obtaining strong word-of-mouth, and had wonderful employees.
“There’s only one unexpected problem,” he told me, “and that’s dealing with the public!”
Recently, a guy writes to tell me that I keep sending him a newsletter to which he’s unsubscribed repeatedly. He is snarky and rude. I told him that his address was not anywhere on my system, and further investigation showed that it wasn’t even on any server that my provider owned. I asked if he could possibly have another address, which he had continually denied.
“Well, I did use a second address for a short time which might have been at the time I subscribed,” he admitted. We found that and removed him. He then proceeded to tell me that my customer service was awful (he’s not a customer, since it’s a free newsletter) and that I was arrogant. In other words, it was his error but somehow my fault. This is indicative of people who always blame others and who never see a problem as their fault.
A second woman chastised me for changing the logo on my weekly (again, free) newsletter, Monday Morning Memo®. She told me that the former one had me leaning against my Bentley in an obvious affluent setting, but the second one didn’t have the car and I was smiling. She told me it didn’t fit the image she thought was appropriate.
I told her that it’s the height of self-absorption to think her opinion was worth transmitting, especially that opinion.
Then there were two people who told me that if my points of view didn’t agree more with theirs in the future, they would have to unsubscribe to my (did I mention it was free?) newsletter. They, apparently, don’t read to learn, but read only to be told their point of view is correct.
Of course, 99.5% of my readers are smart, successful people who enjoy learning and a good debate. But it’s fascinating how some people can go through life demanding that you adjust yours to support theirs! Why do they even bother to read at all?
© Alan Weiss 2015
