Quote:
Originally Posted by Multiple Sports
Cam -
I always enjoy reading your posts, but I am always very leery when I see the word CUSTOMERS....it is a term I always hear at the hs level. I have never heard that term at the college level. When i hear customers, I cringe because there is a perception that "the customer is always right"..... I was a camp this summer and the supervisor of officals of the SEC was asked, What have you learned as a supervisor, that if you knew when you were officiating would have made you a better official?" His answer was that he wished he hadn't worried about coaches as much as had when he was a working official.
I assign another sport (not basketball at the hs level), if my umpires dump a coach and the coach calls and complains as long as their was no profanity invloved I send those umpires back to the next game. My guys aren't reason why that team lost.
Once again not saying anything you posted is wrong, just concerned about
CUSTOMERS and what it means at the high school level.............
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Well, they are customers. But, no, they're not always right. That phrase is not even correct in any context, even retail. It is just as bad as phrases heard in officiating such as "he wasn't set" or 'he reached".
Example...retail setting....customer walks up and says this new iPhone should be $19.99 instead of $199.99, is the customer right? Of course not.
In every setting, you have to separate the valid complaints (where the customer
is right or at least has a legitimate concern) from the bogus complaints. If you just shut them all out, you lose.
We should not be trying to keep the individual customers happy but our customers as a group. Yes, we need to lay down the law when they step over the line, but we also need to work with them when they are being reasonable and just want to understand. There will always be whiners who are never happy and you just have to filter them out. If all/most of the coaches are unhappy with the service we provide, someone has messed up. Perhaps it is in educating the coaches in the rules and the expectation, perhaps it is in training the officials. But in the end they are customers buying services we provide.