Is the customer always right? Hardly.

Something I have learned as a cricket umpire: The customer is right, the player is wrong, even though they are the same person.

Before the season, the customer is worth listening to. Why do they want? How can we deliver it? This is what I believe 'The customer is always right' was supposed mean; reserved for market research to inform future policy, and it pays to listen to them and provide.

But not at your shop counter. There, they are no longer customers, but players.

Let’s take a look at cricket.

Pre-game customers, in-game players

Before the season starts, clubs and captains talk back and forth as to what they want, debating the rules. Do we want a shorter 80-over match, or 90? Which ball do we use? Who wins if it rains? Which rules apply? They eventually reach an agreement and we can start the season.

They are expressing that they want a fair game in good spirits, and with that feedback you establish rules to provide it. If you do, they will be good customers and you a good vendor.

But on the field of play, once the ball is in motion, they become a player, and the player is almost never right.

They rail against the rules that they agreed to, they argue and they cry, they beg, plead, threaten and abuse to get their way, and almost always they are on the wrong side of the rules that they agreed to before the game.

The player is not right, and all these actions take us further from delivering what the customer wanted in the first place: A fair and pleasant game.

The cost of shirt returns

I recently read in Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational that sneaky shirt-returning customers, that is, those shoppers who wear a store-bought shirt with the tags in for a few days, then return it, cost retailers $16 billion per year in 2004, compared to all of the actual crime – at only $525 million.

The pre-game customer might want well-made clothing at a reasonable price, and they’d be right.

The player will cheat as much as you let them, and this will cost both you and the original fair customer.

In allowing a shirt-returning player under the guise of ‘The customer is always right,’ we forget about the customer who is actually right – the one who wanted good clothes at a good price. Now the store needs to raise the price to cover the theft, which betrays the store owner’s ability to provide the service that the customer asked for.

In presuming that the player is right, we betray the customer.

Finding solutions

We can't be so very hard-arse on all customers though. Perhaps there was something genuinely wrong with the shirt, and perhaps the store knows that treating customers like they are under investigation will do more harm than good, but that’s when coming up with better policies pays off – rules that the honest customer would be happy to play by.

If they do return an item, make a policy to treat them well with all good graces, but once they are out of the shop, discretely inspect the shirt to see how legitimate you believe the claim to be. Good customers don't need to know, and poor players won't get away with it twice. You can then use good customers' standing to reward them with the reduced price that they asked for in the first place, while not doing so for the ones that decided to play dirty pool.

Here's where treating a business like a game pays off. Gamification is more than gathering points and levels and such - good market research will let you listen to your customers and design a better game for your players.

Listen to your customers, design a better game, then let them play it.

Stuart Black

Gamified strategic copywriter, at your service. Connect and give me a shout!