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Is the customer ALWAYS right?

Sportsword

Sportsword

I wanted to share a situation I had when helping a local radio station a couple of years ago. Everybody has stories kinda like this if you ever dabbled in ads but I wanted to just create a venue for discussion.

The question here is simple: Is the customer right? Or better yet, let me extend that...is the customer ALWAYS right? I am basing this off an experience I had while helping some people at WLLY.

Most of you know that the General Manager (Wallace Bullock) passed away while running the station. When he did, he left a station behind that was not trained to do anything except play music...not even allowed to talk on the air. In the wake of his loss (and he was a good man) the station has numerous problems, one of which was the ads.

The family of the late Wallace Bullock requested that his voice be removed from the air, which included every single spot on WLLY...since he did them all. But by doing that, it put the two people working there in a bind because they had no idea how to cut a spot. They had to redo ALL the spots or start losing money.

I helped them with a number of things but there was one customer that really turned my nose. This owner of a pest control service told the station that he had a deal with the late Bullock that he was supposed to have a commercial cut for him to be played at noon every day. The personnel working there feared losing his business, but I questioned if the contract was legit. There was no contract on this deal, and even if there was, the passing of the GM would have made that contract null and void, meaning he'd have to negotiate another one.

The problem here is that he claimed that this was a barter, that he would come boy once a month and spray around the station in exchange for a spot every weekday at noon. Again, no writing at all anywhere in the station on this, and I was very skeptical about it. But fearing the loss of that customer, the station tried to please him.

After trying to cut a few spots for him, they got frustrated and asked me to cut one,since I had more expericence. I took the info that he wanted me to use and immediately I told them, "it's too long". It was way too much information to be used on a 30 second spot, we'd never get all his info in. So we tried a nice 30 second spot, since that was a fair deal IF there indeed was a barter agreement.

They played it for him, and he didn't like it because he said he wanted more info on his spot. I was upset because it was starting to sound like he was bullying the station and told the personnel to drop him. I felt he was being unfair and maybe trying to take advantage of this situation of losing a GM. But the station still feared losing customers,so they asked me to cut a 60 for him. Against my better judgement, I did...

And he STILL didn't like it. He wanted all his info on it!

I told the people that to give him all the info he wanted, it would turn out to be like 90 seconds, and that clearly was not the barter, even if such existed. We do know they come by to spray the station, so apparently there had to have been some agreement, but now we had no idea of the actual value.

I refused to cut another spot for that guy, and advised the station to either tell him to accept what they had or drop him and get another barter with a pest control business. But again, not wanting to lose a customer, they gave in and did a 90+ second spot for him, and put him on at noon, the best time of the day.

Disappointed, I asked the person, "how much does it cost for them to spray this station". The station isn't big at all, and they told me about $30. So, doing the math, the station is getting about $360.00 of service off the barter...let's just round it to $400 just for argument's sake.

Then I asked them, how much would you normally charge for a 30 second spot? About $5, so triple that for a 90 second spot, and you've got about $15 a spot. Now multiply that times 5 days and you get $60 a week. Multiply that times 4 weeks and you have $240 a month. Multiply times 12 months and you get $2880 a year. I asked the station, "do you think it's fair that this guy bullies you to an unwritten barter, and gets almost FIVE times the value against you?"

Sometimes the customer is NOT right. But how can you blame the customer if the station allows people to push them over? I'd like to say it's the customer's fault, because in general it is, but the station is also at fault because they were never taught how to run a business, but knew that they had the authority to say yes or no to such a barter. So, can a customer always be right?
 
Speaking as a former owner, no the customer is not always right.

As in this case, some customers/people will take advantage of a situation.
Know when it's time to walk away.

Whatever funky deal was set up by the late GM is null and void.
If the station is concerned with $30 bucks a month, they have far bigger problems.
 
hell man,that just good ole boy radio..ahh da day of the barter..i can't thing of a barter where the station didn't get screwed...sale it or play music
 
I agree there are times when the customer isn't always right. When I worked at a bank call center there were several times where we the bank was right and the customer was wrong. There also were times when the bank DID make a mistake and the customer was right. We are all human and each can mke mistakes. However, in your case both were wrong as the station did not keep good records of its transactions (should have paperwork on said "barter"). Verbal contracts are that way they NEVER hold up in court. Get it in writing. Then if the client comes back and says one thing you have proof that this is what they agreed upon. The client IS trying to play on the situation to get something more than what was agreed upon for nothing but without any documentation to support the station's point there is no way to prove the client si right or wrong. I also agree if they are so worried about $30 then they have WAY more problems than is visible.
 
Excellent points made, all of them. I just felt that if you are in charge of a station, it is YOUR authority once the owner passes that title to you. The owner of WLLY decided that rather than pay qualified individuals to run the station, he just titled the two people there as "co-managers" Note this does NOT come with a pay raise, they are paid minimum wage.

But one then they said to me was, "the owner told me that above everything else, don't lose any customers"

I told them that was very unfair because you are actually forcing the people of the station to believe that the customer can never be wrong. So rather than stand up and defend the station, they break down and give in to every demand.

This actually was shown in one of the daily talk shows they did, called, "The Good Neighbor Guide". I never liked this show because the show centers around a local hardware store who always gets free advertising. But the fact of the matter is, the station wanted to cut that program out so they can focus on trying to rebuild the station, but from what I was told by the co-manager, the local hardware store told them that the HAD to keep the program going.

How in the world is a local hardware store telling a radio station to keep a program when they are getting free advertising? In every show, they have to call the store and talk about the "special deals" they have that day.

None of that made sense to me, and I told the station that no business has the right to TELL you how to run the station. But they said that the store said that there was a verbal agreement that they would do the show every weekday,and call the store every day they were on the show. But there is no proof anywhere about it. I asked the co-manager to ask them to present some proof, and they told them, "we don't need to prove anything because it's a verbal agreement."

But here's the thing...even if it was a verbal agreement, it was with the GM, who now is deceased. So now the station is taking the word of a business over their apparent right to run their own station. So every day when they do the "Good Neighbor's Guide" that local hardware store gets free advertising because the station has to call the store and talk to them and ask them about whatever special deals they have. We're talking about a 5-10 minute conversation, so you can imagine how much that SHOULD have been costing them.

Sometimes the customer can take advantage of a situation, which is clearly the case in the two examples I gave, but I guess it takes two to tango. The station knew they were in the right, but refused because they feared losing a customer or two. And maybe in doing that, they lost authority of the station because those people got exactly what they wanted...free of cost.
 
This begs the question, why are you spending so much time on a lost cause?
A tip of the cap for TRYING to make a bad situation better, but obviously no one is listening.

Banging your head against the wall will only give you a headache. :)
 
just because a guy is dead that is no reason for him not to do his production
 
Talk about good ol' boy radio. I remember working for a station where the owner traded everything that was on the air. He traded for his car, his wife's, his kid's car. Groceries, even his HOUSE!

WOW!

Kris
 
I knew a guy who traded out part of the hospital bill when his wife had a baby..
I think he wanted to trade his wife...

Allen
 
allenv said:
I knew a guy who traded out part of the hospital bill when his wife had a baby..
I think he wanted to trade his wife...

Allen
Click to expand...

And I know of some stations who will trade the station if they could get away with it....
 
talking about ole' time barter radio...ever 'plugged" for a meal..it is all bout the food man...lol
 
The original post did not indicate if there was ANY CASH involved in this deal.

If it was straight barter, they should simply say "I'm sorry, we have no record of your agreement. We will be glad to discuss some arrangement with you. How much for the service you are proving? Ok, we'll give you a $30 credit each month towards your advertising. Now, what would you like from us?"

Put a price on what he wants, subtract his credit, and send him a bill. If he doesn't want to do it, the deal of off!

Bottom line, if there was NO CASH involved, they really haven't lost a customer! Sounds like this guy was not really a customer, but a vendor who wanted to trade for his services. Customer spend CASH!

Now, in answer to the question "Is the customer always right?" I say "no, but he IS always the customer!"
 
There are so many way to go about this I realize, but often times we see that one of the key problems with local radio stations is that the staff are not trained to actually be sales persons. And if they are not truly sales people, then the entire foundation of "customer" is suspect.

I mentioned my examples of WLLY, mind you, that was PAST tense, because you learn after awhile that sometimes people in local radio are just not qualified to deal with the "customer is right" scenario.

I think this goes back to the idea that the lack of professional personnel is a key reason for this particular problem. Mind you, in the examples I gave, neither situation was truly handled by a salesperson, more less any person that had radio management experience. This was the result of two people who had a station dumped on their laps and told to run it. No sales experience, no technical experience, no real radio experience, just two people who only played music. So when the actual situations come about how some customers deal with others, they were really in no credible situation to deal with it, because they had no experience in it.

So it then begs the queston, of the 4 radio stations in my town, how many are really sales people...the answer is none. Nobody in the four stations combined are sales people by TRADE. That's important because if you tell the 4pm DJ that he is now a sales person, with no experience...that does not make him a salesperson. It just makes him a DJ that now had to go make sales (if he can).

Does this change the actual position of a customer who may or may not be taking advantage of a station? Is a customer still a customer because he spends money or whether he does not? I don't know, I really don't. I mean, to say that a customer is one that spends money does not sound so accurate especially when we deal with radio. If I am on the air from 9 to 5, then I have to believe that every person listening to me is a POTENTIAL customer. They may not have spent any money on me, but I would hope that they would soon spend money with a client we have. If I run a spot about tires at "Jack Frost's Tires" then I am hoping those listeners become customers with Jack Frost. To me, they are hopeful customers.

And even if they are not spending money, they still carry the potential because of word of mouth. They might not buy tires from Jack Frost, but they might tell others that may end up doing so. So I guess to me the idea of customers and spending money gets more broad.

All this comes back to the customer who may or may not be right. The power of word-of-mouth makes many businesses a customer, whether we acknowledge them or not. For example, when I did high school football, we needed a few more spots to fill some time, so I went out and asked several businesses if we could cut a spot free of charge and run it during one of our games. Even though no money exchanged hands, they became my customer because it was then important to make them happy...within reason.

And I think that is the key to whether the customer is right or not...the words, "within reason". To me, that pest control barter was not within reason, nor was the hardware store. But if you are not qualified in the position, then you have no true idea what is "within reason". You just act and react, and with the commandment of "don't lose any customers" from the owner, it creates fear of losing a "customer" rather than taking control of that owner's investment.

I realize this is a very tricky subject, because it could have been defined or resolved many different ways. Everybody here had some credible points, and none were wrong in my eyes. But I do believe there is a limit of how far a "customer" can push his authority over that of a radio station, whether he pays or barters. By the dictionary the word customer says one that pays for a product or service, but in radio, we operate on the HOPE that our listeners will spend money on those spots we cut. That makes those listeners potential customers, and thus seen the same way.

But paid, barter or nil, there is a limit, a customer can be wrong, right?
 
I would have stuck the bug man in his truck, rolled up the windows, locked the doors and then fumagated it! Then I would have bought the station a can or Raid and some mousetraps.

Problem solved and 90 seconds more to sell!!
 
I would have stuck the bug man in his truck, rolled up the windows, locked the doors and then fumagated it! Then I would have bought the station a can or Raid and some mousetraps.

Problem solved and 90 seconds more to sell!!
 
To me a "customer" is a client and a listener in the radio context. Here's why: a client is YOUR customer to your business the radio station and a listener is as you say a potential customer but they ARE your customers too becuse they may know a shop owner who may be looking for a way to advertise his business and because they listen to your station and interact with your station they are indirectly customers becuase they MAY shop at the vusnesses you advertise and therefore they (the business) may buy more time on your station). You as an individual is a customer when you go to Wal-Mart to buy something or use a service like say Fed EX or Joe's plumbing. We are all customers in some way or another and we all make mistakes so each can can and will at times be wrong.
 
It just dawned on me that JOE THE PLUMBER from Toledo is going to get rich because he asked a political candidate a question on the campaign trail. Only in AMERICA.
 
As I have said many times before, if it wasn't for those dumb listeners, and stupid advertisers, radio would be a great business. :~)
 
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