Customer Service... Is the customer ALWAYS right?

I am currently working part-time in customer service for a local fashion park. I love my job, but sometimes customers are not very pleasant. Recently, I had an encounter with the manager of one of our fashion park's retailers that was very disturbing. She had an issue with her store's central air conditioning system. The air conditioning system was not working properly, and it was blowing out heat for some odd reason. Anyway, she called me (at customer service) to explain the problem, and she asked me to call maintenance to come over to her store to fix the problem. At that point, I complied and ended the conversation with her. While I was on the phone with her I had a line of about 3 customers. However, I did as she asked and called maintenance for her.

About 5 minutes went by and the manager called me back. Her first question was, "What is your problem?" I was immediately shocked and confused by her question. She continued to attack me and I eventually became defensive because I couldn't understand why she was upset with me. I am always extra friendly and overly helpful when I'm at work. I couldn't understand why she would think any differently of me. Therefore, I calmly ended the conversation and told her to contact my manager on Monday morning with her complaint. She still continued yelling and screaming through the phone, so I hung up. In this situation, she was the customer and I was attempting to provide maximum customer service for her. I believe that she was upset and enraged because of the situation happening in her store, and I was simply the target.

Fortunately, my manager knew exactly who she (the store manager) was when I called her to give her the heads up about the situation. My manager told me not to worry about anything because she knows that I always provide excellent customer service at the fashion park. Could you imagine what could’ve happened if my manager had not been supportive and understanding? That lady could’ve gotten me fired all because she was having a bad day. Sometimes customers can be wrong, annoying, unreasonable, etc. Customers deserve to be treated with respect, but so do customer service representatives.

Just remember… The customer is NOT always right!!!