The Irrational Customer

Posted on May 23, 2010 | 1 comment

I have a feeling that just about everyone has either observed a situation with an irrational customer or has even been that customer yourself (God knows I have myself). You know the type of irrationality that I’m speaking about; it is the type that occurs when nothing makes a customer happy.

Yesterday, I observed an irrational customer. After experiencing my second tire blow out in 5 months the day before, it was definitely time for a new set of tires on my SUV. While waiting on my car to be brought into the bay, I sat at the customer counter and typed away at future blogs posts for the coming weeks.

I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop on the conversation that started only a few feet away from me. However, voices quickly elevated and it was nearly impossible not to be a witness of the words that were exchanged.

Evan, an employee at the tire shop, calmly explained to the aggravated customer that three tires would have to be replaced instead of only two. The customer wasn’t happy. Even though Evan clearly offered to replace one of the tires for free, she was calling her husband to come down and look at the three tires (since he used to work at a tire shop).

Evan agreed and told her that he would pull the car out of the bay until her husband arrived. “You mean to tell me that now you are pulling my car out of the bay? My husband will be here in five minutes!” yelled the customer. Evan replied, “I am really sorry Mam but we have a long list of waiting customers that I need to service before we close in thirty minutes. Please let me know as soon as your husband gets here and I’ll be glad to review everything with him.”

“I’m done with you!” yelled the customer. “We are through!”

Twenty minutes the later the customer’s husband arrived to speak with Evan. From observation in the parking lot, it appeared that the husband understood and agreed with the assessment.

This was a great example of an irrational customer. Every attempt that Evan made to apologize and diffuse the situation was cast aside in the fogged mind of the customer. With every response, her anger elevated exponentially. I’m not even sure that she realized that he was offering to replace a tire for free. It simply didn’t matter to her.

Such a situation is a two-way street. We always put the onus on the business under the motto of “the customer is always right”. Although I subscribe to this approach as well, taking the high road as a business owner is not always easy. An angry customer tests everything associated with your customer service systems. And you can expect the testing to be extreme when the customer is irrational.