How I Learned The Customer Isn't Always Right

Hey there!

Did you know that the Customer is NOT ALWAYS right?

It's true - and - I said it!

Yet you might not quite believe it. So, consider this story - and - you might come to realize that this is true.

How I Learned That The Customer Is Not Always Right

I had already taken about 4-5 months of abuse from a customer - all in the name of "customer service."

I should have known better upon my first pre-construction meeting with the husband-and-wife team to review their file and tie up loose ends before we started construction.

As I went over my questions - marking up the blueprints to get them to sign off AND reviewing my "general notes" with them, the customers were argumentative the entire meeting.

When it came to the end, the husband said, "This was just a 'CYA' meeting for you." He thought there was no value in it for him. Little did I know at that time, but that meeting was the start of a build that was tough.

They were building "the same house" that they currently lived in. Except for what was different. So, it was a no-win situation for our company.

I never saw their current house, so when things didn't match - I caught heat from them. When things did supposedly match their current house, we were told, "That's not what the plans say."

Either way, we were the villain.

The build process was painful. One of those that I would have liked to have just pushed the hole shut and forget about.

But I pressed on - eating humble pie more times than I would have liked to.

A few weeks after the customers settled and moved in, I got a call that we had "staked off the lot corners wrong" and the shed they had put on their property (after move-in) was over the property lines.

AND because we staked the lot lines wrong, they wanted the correct stakes put in AND have us move the shed.

At first, I thought they were wrong - until I found out my Superintendent did the lot stake-off himself and probably DID make an error.

So, I told them we had the lot lines corrected - BUT - I wasn't about to touch their shed. Instead, I told them to get me a bill for moving it and I'd reimburse them.

At that point, the husband said, "You know, Brad....you really are an idiot!"

And - that was my breaking point. The point I knew that the customer is not always right. There are sometimes when someone is just miserable because that's their nature. It's so ingrained in them that it becomes part of them.

As a sidenote, his email address was something like: grumpyman333@XXX.com. Really. That was right in his email address, so I should have known.

In this homebuilding business, you're going to encounter some people that you just can't make happy. No matter what!

Unfortunately, they're also the same people you'll bend over backwards to try to please. But it's all in vain.

When you realize this, you'll be much more at peace when you run into those types. And, hopefully, you'll not waste time thinking you're the one with the problem.

Happy building, my friend!

-Brad

---