Ghost of Christmas Past:  Is The Customer Always Right?
Scrooge meeting The Ghost of Christmas Past in A Christmas Carol (1951) Renown Pictures Corporation

Ghost of Christmas Past: Is The Customer Always Right?

It was mid day on Christmas Eve and most production staff had begun shifting into celebration mode. The last work day before Christmas shut down was drawing to a close and the air was filled with holiday anticipation. Assembly machine noise was increasingly replaced by music, laughter and lively conversations amid the growing excitement of another holiday season. Who could work on a day like this?

For manufacturing companies, year end can be a stressful time as customers need product delivered before holiday shut down. It's always a race to the finish line, made even more difficult with staff longing to get home where family, friends and fun await. You can't help but feel a bit like Scrooge, trying to meet deadlines when everyone has Christmas on the brain.

This year would be no different. Shut down couldn't come soon enough. But there were plenty of things to get done in the remaining hours and minutes.

The call came in at three. A customer needed us to ship all of their product. A quick tally confirmed the quantity sitting on the shipping dock, awaiting FedEx pickup at four.

"No," said the customer on the phone. "I need all of it. Including any units you have on the production floor."

The remaining units weren't originally expected to be shipped until the new year. They were assembled, yes. But not tested. There was no way we could test all the remaining units and prepare them for shipping within the next hour.

"Ship them anyway," said the customer. "Untested. I don't care. I need to make my year end numbers."

This was typical year end gamesmanship. Some customers wanted to show more inventory on their books at year end. Some wanted to show less. All had sales quotas to meet. With untested product though? Unheard of before this. No customer had ever asked us to ship untested product. But the customer is always right, right?

After the phone call, we advised the production leader to box up and ship out the remaining units, as authorized by the customer.

"But they haven't been tested," said the team leader. "They're not ready to ship."

We advised to ship them anyway. That's what the customer wanted.

"I won't do it," said the team leader. "I'll quit before I ever ship untested product."

We persisted. This is what the customer wants. It's their product. It's their decision. The customer is always right....

So the team leader quit. Right on the spot. On Christmas Eve. Just like today.

Was the customer right? Were we right for wanting to comply a customer demand? Was the team leader right for standing firm on values we as a company had instilled? Values that went to the core of what we existed for?

Clearly, we did instill those values for the right reasons. How could I fault the team leader for not wanting to go against those values? Was it right to quit over something like this? Would you quit? Or would you ship?

In the end, we convinced the team leader to stay. And we also convinced the customer to allow us the necessary time to test. It was a valuable experience along with a potentially costly lesson. And it begs the question: Is the customer always right? I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. May 2018 be a great year for building both customer and staff relationships!

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