Why Customer is always right

Why customer is always right lets see

Are you feeling down these days? Does it seem as if everybody is saying you are wrong and they are right—like when your customers are screaming about your bad service? Maybe even your relationship with your significant other is going south—and, of course, it's yourfault.

To answer this (and better diagnose what's really going on), we offer you a handy idea called the fundamental attribution error, or FAE for short.
Also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect, FAE has long been recognized by social psychologists and researchers of consumer behavior. It refers essentially to a bias that people have in assigning responsibility for behavior. Specifically, it goes something like this: If something bad happens to me, it's due to somebody or something else; If something good happens to me, well, it's because of me!


Now, you might think of this as a cute scientific finding that has little relevance to marketing, but you would be wrong. It has everything to do with marketing, sales, service, alliances, and marketing relationships. (We'll go even further: It has an effect on your personal relationships as well.)

Bad Service, or Why You're Always at Fault
Consider service encounters. I'm sure you've had customers who've yelled at you for things that they did themselves. Maybe they didn't read the instructions carefully on a product you sold them, or they didn't see the links on your website they were supposed to click. Maybe you were at fault, or maybe you weren't. It doesn't make any difference, since it's something bad that happened to a customer, so they will typically say it's due to somebody else... namely, you.
.
Let them.
Not convinced that the FAE is that powerful? Consider the following actual, recorded statements* having to do with responsibility for car accidents, and notice the power of the fundamental attribution error:
It Wasn't My Fault!
Breaking Up Alliances and Relationships
Whenever there's an encounter between two people, the context is rife for the fundamental attribution error to occur. Not sure whether that's true?
Think about the relationships you now have with other people and think about one that isn't going well (or maybe one that broke up recently). If you're like most people, you probably think the problems rest with your partner (and your partner thinks the problems are all with you). That, again, is perfectly consistent with the FAE: If something's wrong, it's somebody else's fault.

Satisfaction and Other Things

Often, marketing is concerned with measuring customer reactions. For example, you might be interested in the satisfaction your customers experience. The FAE can play havoc with these measures, typically making you look worse than you really are. The same thing happens in all evaluative situations, such as performance evaluations.
If you understand your own biases, you can take responsibility and improve your customer relations and partnerships. If you understand your partners' biases, you can better work with them by having a more sympathetic ear.
After all, just like you, they're acting human.