Is The Customer Always Right? | Biz To Biz Podcast

Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the biz to biz podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Mike Shanahan of payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman. And we'll be providing you educational information about fintech, small business payment processing, and the technology businesses are using in the world today. And in today's podcast, we'll be asking and answering the age-old question, is the customer always right? And I say, hell no. But yes, when they're in the building anyway. Yeah, man. So how are you doing?

I'm doing good. Recovered from Labor Day weekend.

Oh, well, you're out here weekend at Bernie's or something? What the hell?

No, just chilling. Chilling all weekend, relaxing, to recover from chilling. Yeah, had to recover, you know. I watched the new Adam Sandler—

hardcore, man, you got to recover from chilling.

I watched the new Adam Sandler movie.

Yeah, I've been mentioning that you wanted to watch it. How was it?

It was very good. I, I don't know if I would say it's very popular. People are enjoying the movie. The message was cool. Yeah, yeah, it was good. It was a good Good movie.

It's a girl dad movie, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So you, you relate it?

You can relate it? I relate.

And not to— I do love this cherry. I mean, and the double cherry with the whipped cream, if you're Jewish, so it's based on a Jewish tradition. Yes. So it, it hit all— it covered all that.

Sandler is my favorite comedian.

Oh, we don't know that. No, we— yes. I'm surprised Adam Sandler hasn't— his publicist hasn't reached out to like—

listen, we'd love to have Adam Sandler on the podcast. We can discuss his— whatever he wants.

We could talk about his business, about the Happy Gilmore.

Yeah, his Gil— his Madison Productions.

Happy Madison.

Happy Madison.

Yes, you, you are a fan of his. You got to know that.

And I did see, uh Rob Schneider at the Improv a few weeks ago, and I got up and I said, "You can do it!" And he answered me back. He jumped off his stool and he goes, "You can do it!" And I got to ask him a question.

Look at that.

It was pretty good.

It's almost like a boyhood childhood dream.

It was pretty— that was, that was pretty much— that was fun.

That's cool.

I would love to meet Adam Sandler in person.

That happened. That's not happening.

Has not happened yet.

I'm sure you can.

I had tickets to go see Adam Sandler in person, but COVID came.

Yes, we know. We've heard the story, sir. I don't mean to cut you off, but we've heard the story numerous times.

What's happening in your neck of the woods?

This weekend I had my granddaughter, man. Eliana, Ellie Belly, was with Papa, my best friend. Well, anyway, uh, her and I— my wife, she cleans. She had her cleaning business thing. Uh, she, she was really busy this weekend. She cleaned the office here, uh, and then she cleaned two other places. So I was, uh, Papa duties all weekend, uh, which was cool. Saturday, uh, we went to the beach, actually.

Nice. Yeah, you were talking about that.

Yeah, we actually did. We met, we made it to the beach, which was awesome. Um, and then, uh, me and her hung out. Oh, I cut the lawn. Yeah, I mowed the lawn this weekend. I did a lot of lawn work. I, uh, my, uh, the owner of the house that I live in is painting, uh, which gave me a super panic heart attack because my first thought was he's selling the house. Oh, shit.

Sorry.

But I talked to him. He said he's not selling. So yeah, that was a sign of relief. But so I had to like, you know, when I was doing the lawn, my weed whacker, I had bought some— I was about to say I copped some— I copped some weed whacker line from Amazon. For all those that don't know this language, I bought some wire for the weed whacker, and it is the worst.

Uh-oh.

So it breaks as soon as you start it. And I have— so the weeds were out of control, like, going along the house. Yeah, you kind of can't paint the house when there's, you know, weeds going up and together. Well, in the backyard, in the front of the house, I would just pull them. Yeah, it's not a big deal when I seen them. But, uh, so I, I took care of all that, and then Uh, you know, it's bulk pickup in my neighborhood, so every possible thing that I felt could get out of my yard, yeah, is going in there.

Okay, so nice.

That's what I spent my day— I spent my day, uh, laboring on Labor Day.

Okay, it happens.

Yeah, I mean, that's what's— when you're—

I did some work too.

When you're a dad, dude, and you have like—

gotta do the dad thing.

And yeah, and you— no one else is gonna do that stuff. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, you gotta do your duty.

Yeah, so I cleaned out the entire backyard. I did the lawn. I planted some trees. I did my nature thing. Me and my Ellie, we went to Home Depot on Sunday and we bought a hibiscus tree. Everyone else has got to pick a tree to plant in the front yard. So she picked some wild thing that we already had. It was like, I forget what the name of it is, but I was like, well, I bought this one.

It's so pretty. And she was like, yeah, it is, Papa.

So we got that one. So yeah, shout out to Ellie Belly for help beautifying our front yard and making the earth and environment a better place for everyone.

So let's dig into the customer is always right.

The age-old question, man, is the customer always right? And my answer is yes when they're present and absolutely not when, as soon as they leave and when they're—

So the funny thing is we did a poll on LinkedIn, okay? 2,426 people looked at the poll and 77 people decided to cast their vote. 12 people said yes, the customer is always right, and 65 said no, which was kind of crazy.

I mean, that's not crazy. It's very believable. I mean, as a business owner, you— we, we, we have to put up with it, right?

Yeah.

You just got to take the shit.

Yeah, you got to take— you got to just take it and try to turn a negative, um, experience that the customer had and hopefully into a positive one so that they're happy when they leave and they come back. Because they always say, if a happy customer will tell 1 or 2 people, an unhappy customer will tell 10.

That's a fact.

So that's— so in there, there was a few comments. One person said The customer's right 98% of the time. Another person said not usually. And one other person said they're human like we are and they lie and embellish. So no.

I mean, the person who said 98% of the time, I would be hard pressed into believing that they've ever owned and operated.

I saw a crazy customer.

I mean, I don't know who that person is, so that person is probably not a business owner.

You never know.

I doubt it.

So I saw a video with, uh, I know we've talked about this person on the podcast. I don't think there's much love for him. Dave Portnoy, you know, the pizza guy.

So yeah, basta, man.

So he was outside, so he was outside of a pizza shop and he's like, oh, this place gets an 8. And then he didn't really like the pizza, so he gave it like a 6.4.

Oh, just in— you talking about the guy who came running out of the— yeah, Dragon Pizza.

Yeah, Dragon Pizza. So the guy came running outside of Pittsburgh. I don't know where it is.

Or is it Philly?

Is it Philly? And the guy was yelling at him, calling him names and all this. They got into a whole shooting, shouting match. The F-bombs were flying, the middle fingers were flying, and the guy was mad. And, you know, meanwhile, honestly, I mean, the funny part is the pizza shop is now packed. Everybody's going to the game.

I bet you it is because Philly's like that. Or where— I mean, if it is in Philly, you know, the people brotherly love, you know, whatever. But to be honest, in my opinion, that pizza looked like trash. Like, bro, how you gonna pick up the pizza and it all flops and falls on?

It wasn't— it didn't look like—

I cannot stand the guy. And I'm not even gonna give you the privilege of me saying your name, sir. But yeah, man, like, anyway, The pizza looked like trash. I'm happy that the business is doing well.

I could say that, you know, he—

in general, at that point, the customer was right.

Well, he was the customer.

That's what I'm saying, he was right.

But also, the guy— the guy who owned the pizza shop was also a customer because he could have— he was getting a review.

No, but that's not— it's all free. That's all—

no, it's not free. He pays for the pizza.

No, I'm saying it's random.

Yeah, he just drops in.

Yeah, no, so it's not like he knew that promo was coming.

No, he doesn't know. Yeah, he said people like say to him, oh, I know you didn't like the pie, let me make you another one, or blah blah blah. But no, I've seen, you know, I think in general, I think he probably helps a lot of business owners with it that don't get attention. Sure.

And they probably get some business from it, and which is good for the business.

So From that part, it's good.

Yeah. When this person, like, they are humans like we are, they lie and embellish. So no, I mean, that's a really deep answer, man. I'm sorry.

So what does it mean for the customer to be right? You want the customer coming back. So you're going to do— I had a boss one time in the hotel business. He used to tell me, if we have a customer and they don't like the food, he'll literally, he goes, I'll grovel. He goes, I'll do whatever it takes to get them to come back to the restaurant. Yeah.

You know, being a web developer and having a business for over a decade, dude, like I could, like you asked me, do I have any stories about like, and I'm just sitting here thinking of like so many things. But the one thing that constantly, like it's just when, a client, they pay you for a website, it's strictly in a contract where you get 2 to 3 revisions, right? And they try to send you like 17. Yeah, dude, like, no, I'm like, you know, the customer is not right at that point, you know what I mean?

At some point in time, you got to put your foot down with all that.

Yeah.

And it— yeah, so that comes under, you know, how do you deal with somebody who's making an unreasonable request. We had that happen. We had all the time, right? So how do you deal with it?

I mean, you gotta— I think the one thing that as business owners we fail to educate our customer, right? So on onboarding, the minute you're starting this project, are you— is it something that is in your capabilities? Can you even handle this project, right? Is it out of scope of the budget from the customer, right? So I think a lot of times it's one of like having the experience, the wisdom of like running—

well, you want to give the customer the right expectation.

Exactly.

So they understand that.

So, I mean, that's setting the bar first, right? But then if you've already done that and the customer is just like, you can't, you can't get past it, Right. I mean, you tip— like, what I would— I would just end the relationship, you know?

No, I get that.

And the contract, if— I mean, if there's a monthly retainer, you know, and that as well, you know, that sucks.

But I'll tell you funny customer stories, a good one from here. So we had a customer one day, calls up on the phone and he says, oh, I want to talk to you about my statements. So I said, okay. So I get, I call the bank, I get the statements emailed over. I'm looking at the statements, everything looks good. I email them over to the guy. He calls me back. I go, "I just sent you the statements. I reviewed them. What's the problem?" So the guy's like, "Well, I did my math calculation and the bank is rounding up on the pennies, right?" So he goes, "Last month I paid an extra," like 2 cents, because I think that the bank should round down. And the guy's like being, he's got me on the phone for like an hour explaining his whole math to me, right?

How do you control that?

So I called the bank and I go, this guy's asking this question. They're like, no, we round up and that's it. So I called the guy back, I explained to him and he doesn't like it. And he's got me on the phone now, like tied up for like almost 2 hours. Whoa. Of going back and forth and he's explaining all this math process to me and all that. So I called the bank back. I'm like, do you guys have, you know, and back then you got to understand, I'm in business 20 years. So change was actually a thing. People are like, change? You know, back in those days you had a change cup and everything, right?

You sent them 24 cents?

No. So what I did was I called them up and we dealt with this bank and I said, can you guys send me with the name of the bank on it, one of the, you know, some of those rolls of pennies? So they sent me 4 of them and I filled it up with pennies and I put it in a box and I sent the guy like 4 or 5 rolls of papers for his machine and a couple of ribbons. I put it in a box and I mailed it to him. And the guy calls me on the phone, he goes, what is this? And I said, well, the bank, you know, doesn't want you to be upset. So when you feel like they rounded up and you think they should round down, you go into the box and you take 2 pennies and go deposit that in your bank account, and then we'll be straight. So you got $2 there, that should last quite a long time.

He was pissed.

He thought— he goes, are you trying to be funny? And I was like, no. I said, but there's no way. It's going to cost them too much money to go make this adjustment and send you an ACH for 2 cents every month. And, you know, I can't be tied up on the phone with you for 2 hours discussing 6 cents. So we sent you some paper, some ribbons, complimentary. Thank you for being a customer. He stayed a customer for quite a few years.

Yo, that was an a-hole move, but I love it because—

but I didn't know how to— I didn't know what else to do.

That's what I would—

I—

that's why I said you sent the $20, because I'm thinking, all right, there's To send them $2. No, you're saying 2 cents a month to 12 months a year, 24 cents. I'm like, he sent them 24 rolls of $2. No, hey man, hey, I get the logic behind it. It's smart, like, but it's also being a smartass.

That's why it worked, and the guy stayed a customer. Hey, we had another client one time called us up, says they need a wireless machine. Now back in the day Wireless machines were super expensive. They were— the cost was $700, $800, right? And then you needed a SIM card and you had to get it, you know. So we rushed everything, got the thing programmed, had it. The guy was going to Las Vegas to be at a show. We shipped it to the guy in Las Vegas and he was very happy. He had the machine for like 2 years.

Nice.

One day I got a phone call from the bank and they said, oh, this guy's unhappy with his machine and he wants his money back. So I look and I'm like, this guy's unhappy with the machine. I go, I told them, I said, we sold the guy the machine like over 2 years ago. They're like, what? And I just said, yeah. I said, here's the, you know, go find the invoice, right? And everything. And the guy written us back then wrote a check, right? And that's what happened. And I said, it's 2 years. I said, so I called the guy on the phone. I go, I can't give you your money back. You bought the machine, you use it for 2 years. He goes, oh, but I see it on eBay cheaper now. I'm like, you can't just go by that. It's the same thing. We've had— we had a customer once that I see it, it's 2 years old, dude.

Yeah, it's gonna be cheaper, right?

It's gonna be cheaper. And he goes, oh, you ripped me off. I go, no, that's what the price was 2 years ago. Now it's a—

you—

that was a brand new machine at the time, right? The brand new model, like a cell phone. Right, yeah, you could go buy an iPhone for $150 somewhere on those websites, used iPhone, right?

It's not gonna be the iPhone whatever.

Yeah, it's not gonna hold the software that's out there.

The new one, yeah.

Right, so.

That's for you.

You have to, you know, so he wasn't happy and he wanted his money, he wanted his money back, but we didn't do that. He even wrote to the Better Business Bureau.

Against you guys?

Yeah, and then I sent the Better Business Bureau the invoice and everything and I said, you can't return equipment that's over 2 years old.

Yeah, that's BS.

And they remove that from—

I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to pick up Rocky.

That's something like that.

Big bags of bullshit. But anyway, man, what does it mean for the customer to be right? I mean, I think the customer has to, you know, really be knowledgeable what they're explaining and then also have proof.

Well, no, I think what you have to do is like what you said, what you said, you know, what's the expectation of the customer? You know, listen, we had a customer the other day, right? Sends me an email, sends me a text message in the morning. Oh, you took all this money out of my bank account. I thought I was paying monthly. I said, I offered you monthly. Then you told me you wanted to pay for it. And I switched it for you paying for it, right? And I says, you know, that's what you decided, right? And then he changes, you know, then he was like, okay, yes, I guess I did that.

Again, a point, that's when the customer is not always right, right?

But that's why, like, when I do those things, I said we emailed, right? And I sent him the email saying, no, charge me, I don't want to pay monthly.

One just came to my mind. I used to, I usually, if I, I used to give the option to certain clients to pay their, their, you know, their yearly annual fee, right?

Yeah.

If they're gonna, you know, if they're gonna all at once, or they can break it up into pieces, right? I found that to be a horrible business model because people don't pay their bills on time.

Yeah.

Okay, so I— then I said, all right, I'll, I'll do it, but it's— I'll do it in, you know, 3-month increments, quarters, right? Um, which worked a little bit. And then I was like, you know what, I'm gonna have that as an option, but I'm gonna invoice for the entire amount, right? But there'll be a small radio button that you can click to set up.

Or see, if you use Real Merchant account and you have people paying you monthly or quarterly, you just set it and forget it.

Reoccurring payments.

Yeah. And it's just happening.

And I mean, I was doing that, but, you know, people don't always pay.

Well, you have to have the right— like, we have a system.

People change their credit card, people close their checking account, etc., etc. You know.

But I sent Rocky—

did not like this invoice.

Change your credit card.

I sent the invoice for, uh, for a year to, you know, a customer. She paid it, and then she calls me on the phone and she's like, you charged me twice. And I said, no, I didn't. She said, well, last year it was only this amount. And this year it's double that. And I looked at her, I mean, I was like, I was looking at the, you know, you at that point you're looking at what is this lady talking about? So I look at, you know, I'm looking through the invoice and I'm like, well, yeah, it is twice the amount because last year you paid me half and half in 6 months and in 6 months, right? And she said, well, how come I didn't do that this year? And I said, well, you didn't click the button and set it up that way. Okay, you know what I mean? So, but yeah, the customer's not always right.

So it's very difficult when you have to deal with customers, especially like a restaurant, you know, where you're dealing with throngs of people all the time. We just try to give good customer service. I think, you know, as long as you answer your phone, you answer your emails, you answer your text messages, you're— you know, people today, they can get a hold of you. They can call you, text you, WhatsApp you, email you, Facebook Messenger you, carrier pigeon, smoke signals, right? Send you an email, a letter, a FedEx. So people can get a fax.

Yeah, still fax people.

I have an e-fax.

I'm saying, that's what I'm saying, you people still fax.

Yeah. So I think it's, you know, it's, it's important to, you know, not vacillate when somebody has a complaint. You deal with it right away.

What the hell does vacillate mean? Vacillate?

This guy, words.

What's What was that game you played?

Wordle and Words with Friends.

Vacillate, man. Explain. Come on, explain.

Vacillate means that you— what's the other word for that? Procrastinate. Don't procrastinate, right? When someone has a complaint, you got to deal with it quickly and swiftly so that you show confidence in the matter. So like if someone gets something and they're not happy with it, you need to deal with it right away. Not let, not let the problem fester, you know. So when somebody orders something and then they say, oh, I thought I was going to get it in payments, uh, well, we emailed about this and you said you didn't want to do the payments, you want to just pay for it. So that's, you know, yeah. And I mean, have a paper trail.

To add on about, like, you know, educating the customer, I mean, I think it's just imperative that you both the client and the, you know, like the business and the customer both have a solid understanding of what's going on, right? And making sure that you're both capable to produce and fulfill your obligations to one another.

Same thing. Like we had a customer come to us and they want to key enter all their transactions and we're like, the bank doesn't really want you to do that. They want you to use the new software where you send the people a payment request and then they click it and they put in the credit card because customers actually, you know, that from a product standpoint, I always tell you, I judge products by is it good for the business and is it good for the cardholder customer, you know, the, you know, the merchant and then the person using the service and payment links is something that the customer wants.

Absolutely.

So it's better for the business because the customer is going to feel it's more secure. You don't have their information. You don't have their full credit card number. You don't have their expiration date. You don't have the CVV2 codes. So it's all overall, it's much safer for both parties. More secure for everybody involved. And the credit card number is saved in the system. So it's saved in the system. So if you need to charge the person again, they call you on the phone, it's in there. You can go and see, oh, Justin's card ends in 1234. 1874, boom, and you could charge Justin if you needed to do that. Or you can send Justin another payment link to pay when I'm ready to pay, when he can pay when he's ready. And also remember, you're working, let's say, 9 to 5, right? Or maybe on a day, one day you come in at 12 and you leave at 4. Well, during that time, let's say nobody called you that you sent invoices to. With the payment link, they can pay 24/7. The person can go, oh, they sent me a payment link. I don't have time to deal with that now, but boom, I can go deal with that later.

Yeah. And today it's that way too. So. Right.

And that way with phones, people get their email on their phone, right? They can pay from their phone. They don't have to go to the computer and they have it. Or let's say they have Apple Pay on their phone. They can just hit the Apple Pay button. Pay the app with Apple Pay. And a lot of people do that. I do it all the time. Sometimes people are calling me, oh, you know, just send me a payment link. I didn't even know I owed you money, you know. Oh, send the link. And then they send the link and you make the payment and you're done. Move on to the next task that you have for the day. Or you pay the bill at night. You know, you're finished for your day. Finally, you had a hectic day. You're shorthanded employees, right? So it makes it convenient for everybody. It takes pressure off. You don't have to answer the call to get there. You don't have to hound the customer either. Hey, Justin, I need to get your payment, dude. I need to get your payment. Hey, no, you can just send them an email, you know? And then if you do, and then if you do leave them a voice message or send them a text, say, hey, by the way, I texted you your payment link, please make your payment.

And that way you can make sure that the customer isn't right and that they paid you on time.

Right. Set the expectation up with them so they know that's what they're—

Educate them and teach people how to, you know, get into the new school. Like you said today, Allen said it like the new school way. And I was like, damn right, it's the new school way of doing things because this prehistoric way of running businesses is ridiculous, man. It's literally changing the way you can keep— you can't keep doing the stuff the same way you were doing it, man. You have got to evolve. Otherwise, you will be extinct like your distant relatives, the dinosaurs. So I don't know, man. Customer is not always right. But I will say that we love our customers and that we do our best to educate them so that they know what it is that they're using, how to use it. We train them on the software. We provide them customer support. We do all the things so that they know what's going on and, you know, what to expect from when they're using this stuff.

So yes, yeah, make sure you say— to make sure you're doing right by the customer, set the right expectation.

Absolutely.

Let them know what to expect. And then that way— and then make sure that you're available. No matter what kind of business you have, be available. I tell that to anybody who owns a business. Be available. Answer your phone, answer your emails, answer your texts. You know, make sure your customers know you're there for them.

Darn right. Well, hit that like button, subscribe to the channel on YouTube, please.

Let us know what you think too. Is the customer always right? Or send us a story.

Yeah, let us, uh, let us hear it, man. Give it to us. We'd like to hear from you. Peace.

Peace out. Carpe diem.