No, the customer is not always right

Customers can have unrealistic expectations, misuse or abuse products, or be downright dishonest. Picture: Douglas C Pizac

Customers can have unrealistic expectations, misuse or abuse products, or be downright dishonest. Picture: Douglas C Pizac

Published Oct 10, 2016

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Great service is not negotiable and it shouldn’t come at a cost. Consumers should know when and how to exercise their rights, writes Georgina Crouth.

 

Angry mails filled with expletives, capitalisations and abusive language might not pass as polite communication, but I understand where consumers are coming from because they want someone to hear them.

Most of the time, they’ve exhausted other complaints procedures and been flipped the proverbial corporate bird.

Some people though simply love complaining, insisting on their assumed rights and barking loudly until they’re heard.

But it doesn’t justify being abusive. We’re certainly entitled to exercise our rights but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that whatever your frustrations with a company, there’s a human employee at the receiving end of that mail.

For years, we’ve subscribed to the belief that the customer’s always right, although hospitality sector workers have always known the customer to be right... until they’re not.

Which is why it’s never advisable to complain too bitterly in a restaurant, before you’ve eaten, because you can’t see what they’re doing behind the scenes.

The customer-centric approach might be a relatively new concept but it’s rooted in trading practices from the turn of the previous century in the US.

The slogan, “the customer’s always right” is apparently attributable to retail pioneer Harry Selfridge, who believed keeping the customer happy was good for his business.

Truth is, customers can have unrealistic expectations, misuse or abuse products, or are downright dishonest.

October 3 to 7 was Customer Service Week. First proclaimed in 1992 by the US Congress, it has since grown into a global event that’s said to be celebrated in about 40 countries. This year’s theme was “Service Champions”, with a fair amount of hoopla attached to events around it.

The drive is not given much attention here - although the City of Ekurhuleni has in recent times plugged in - but South Africa could certainly benefit because we have vast room for improvement. Whether it’s Customer Service Week or Consumer Protection Week, more focus should be placed on education around our rights to quality goods and service.

And businesses shouldn’t view consumer laws as punitive because both have rights and responsibilities.

Yet there’s still confusion around exercising our new-found rights under the Consumer Protection Act and the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act (which governs online transactions).

Many consumers, exasperated in their dealings with companies, view the CPA in particular as a toothless act as enforcement is not evident. Much like laws around drinking and driving; smoking in vehicles transporting children; and car seats, there is simply not enough enforcement to force behaviour change.

Consumer law specialist Rosalind Lake, a director at Norton Rose Fulbright, agrees that compliance is a huge problem, saying it’s because there haven’t been any penalties - yet.

“The culture in SouthhAfrica is often to wait for someone to get into trouble. International companies often are very strong on compliance, whereas in other circumstances people take a chance and hope consumers don’t know what their rights are.

“Once we see strict enforcement from the National Consumer Commission (NCC) on a national level and people are penalised, we’ll see a big shift in compliance.”

Education is a big part of it because consumers don’t seem to know their rights, companies are mistaken (or shirking) their obligations and few seem to understand the role of the NCC.

“Consumer education is not where it should be - the commission should be doing more to educate (people about their rights).”

What the NCC has been particularly successful in is setting up the ombudsmen to allow it to focus on the sectors: setting up industry codes; doing big-ticket investigations into pyramid schemes and timeshare, recalls, etc, she says.

“They have always said they’re there for the big national investigations: they’re not there for individual consumer complaints.”

Consumers need to start at the source: follow the company’s complaints process and if that fails, escalate the issue. If it means going to an ombudsman to resolve a dispute, do so, but not all these offices are equally effective and that does not mean the end of the process. And the CPA is not a panacea for all consumer problems.

“There aren’t always remedies under the CPA. So if you want to sue for being without your car, being inconvenienced, missing an important meeting where you lost out on millions, or having to buy another vehicle, there might be a civil claim in a small claims or magistrate’s court. The CPA has very specific remedies.”

With new ombudsmen being set up seemingly every other week, the ones to watch are the proposed funeral industry and advertising standards ombuds. Lake says there’s “massive abuse” in the funeral industry so it’s high time for an ombud. Another area that desperately needs to be cracked down on is false advertising.

Lake deems the Consumer Goods and Services Ombudman (CGSO) as the most strategic for consumers because it works for most consumer complaints - unless they relate to cellphones.

“The CGSO are very efficient, because they have a very good basis of members on the Consumer Goods and Services Council who are funding the ombud. It’s working well and they’re managing their complaints.”

And South African companies have much to learn about customer service.

“I always say to clients: this act (the CPA) is about your reputation. It’s not about the penalties or the consequences to your contract; it’s about consumer trust.

“If for example someone’s phone is in for repairs and you give them a loan phone, they’re going to be delighted, and you can take as long as you like to repair it.

“A lot of it is just not having a consumer-centric mindset and how consumers are managed. Communication on the progress of that repair is key.”

*Georgina Crouth is a consumer watchdog with serious bite. Write to her at [email protected]

** Follow on Georgina Crouth on Twitter: @askgeorgie

The Star

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