The Theory Behind That One Difficult Customer

This one is inspired by RCG's comments on GlassTalk.

Out of 100% of customers, I'd say 99.7% of all of them are quite reasonable people. The type of people that if they find a bit of a scuff on a frame, they'll let you buff it out, and it would look like it was never there, and then never grumble. The type of people that if the rain was really coming down and the fitters were an hour late, they would just carry on their day as if it never happened.

The you have the one customer that demands everything beyond all reason. No matter how far backwards you bend, there will still be something they aren't happy with. Why? Well I think this problem stretches back decades, perhaps even a century. There was a time where everything was made by hand. The country was filled with skilled craftsmen making timber windows, stone lintels with intricate detail, tens of thousands of skilled joiners. People made everything. Then automatic machinery came in and changed the way products were made. Mass production came in and the variety, scale and lead time of everything produced sky-rocketed. As production sped things up, so customer's expectations. As people began to realise that they could access more products, quicker and cheaper, they also realised power was shifting to their side. And ever since then customers have been able to demand more and more for their hard earned cash.

This has happened so much so, that a proportion of the buying public seemed to have forgotten that despite all the advanced manufacturing techniques and processes, the odd mistake can happen, nothing is perfect. Many of the customers we deal with understand that despite the best laid plans, things can go wrong from time to time. But, we do our best to put things right and 99.7% of our customers are completely understanding. Then there's the odd one who 'just cannot live with that scratch', or 'that slightly wonky bit of silicone'.

We now live in a consumer demanding world where the consumer thinks that their money is really a ticket which allows them to demand, and as far-fetched as that may seem, it's probably about 80% right.