Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of talk about spoiled, demanding customers, and how this is becoming a real problem for businesses. And it got me thinking, does client experience make that worse? Does providing a fantastic client experience make clients even more spoiled, even more demanding? That may be a question you’re wondering/worrying about too. If it is, I’ve searched around a bit and haven’t found much research on this topic, so I’ll just give you my opinion.
In short, yes and no. Let’s tackle yes first. The more aware customers are of how well a business can treat them, the more aware they also are of how well a business isn’t treating them or even is just doing a mediocre job. So, it does force businesses to shift more of their focus on customer satisfaction. It forces them to be more thoughtful, more creative, and sometimes a little more generous than they may have been in the past. Because, society is demanding more overall from businesses. But, isn’t that a good thing for the most part? Gone are the days when the customer just had to cross their fingers that they weren’t being taken advantage of by a business. And gone are the days when businesses told customers how they were going to do business and customers just had to go along with it. Now it’s more likely to be the other way around.
Now, let’s tackle the no. Like I’ve said before, I’m an eternal optimist. I truly believe that the more good, kind, thoughtful, “think of the other person first” type of behavior we have, the better off we all are. And what you give you, you get back. There will always be the royal pains but I honestly don’t think that’s the norm. I don’t think most people want to take advantage of others, if they see that they’re not being taken advantage of. When they see that they can stop playing the “I’ll take advantage of you before you take advantage of me” game they relax. As people see that others are treating them well, they appreciate that, and return the favor. People want to be kind, and thought of as a good person if they can. Call me cheesy, old-fashioned, or naive, but I really do believe that! Now if a customer is being absolutely ridiculous with their requests than of course I don’t condone just giving them whatever they want. There’s a line of respect that goes both ways, but that subject is long enough to be it’s own post on another day!
So I say, go ahead and treat your customers well. Do all that you can to make them deliriously happy, make your staff happy, and they will more than likely do the same for you. And even if they don’t, you can rest assured in the fact that you put that much more good out into the world. And there’s never anything wrong with that!
Let me know in the comments below if you agree or disagree!
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