Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones

CUSTOMER-CENTRIC VERSUS CUSTOMER CESSION

This chapter makes a strong argument for balance and equilibrium between investing and committing equally to customers and employees. In fact, some might argue that employees are even more important than customers, which isn’t necessarily far from the truth. Using the same logic that customers should be prioritized over prospects (remember: without customers, there is no business), so, too, could it be argued that employees should be prioritized over customers (without employees, there is no way to do business).

Happy Hour Is 9 to 5 author Alexander Kjerulf wrote a great blog post³³ called “Top 5 Reasons Why ‘the Customer Is Always Right’ Is Wrong.” In it, he challenges the notion that “the customer is always right”—originally coined in 1909 by Selfridge’s department store founder Harry Gordon Selfridge—with the following five reasons:

1. It makes employees unhappy: Blindly ceding to customers at the expense of employees is a dangerous proposition. In fact, when it comes to customer versus employee, it’s perhaps best to give employees the benefit of the doubt (or, at the very minimum, let them be innocent until proven guilty).

2. It gives abrasive customers an unfair advantage: Why should abusive customers be treated better than respectful ones? Just because they make a bigger noise or create a bigger scene head-to-head with an employee in front of other customers? And what if they’re in on the notion of blind acceptance (see point 1) ...