The customer is always...

Finish this sentence: “The customer is always (blank).”

• Did you say “welcomed”? (Smart! After all, no customers = no business.)

• Did you say “right”? (I love this idea when I’m the customer; as a business owner, I want to scream, "THAT'S NOT EVEN CLOSE TO TRUE!")

• Did you say “a pain in the you-know-what”? (Hey, I feel you. I have those days too. Eat some ice cream. Tomorrow will be better.)

My vote for the best answer to stick in that blank is “fighting a hard battle.”

This is a nod to the famous saying (by either Plato, Philo of Alexandria, or Ian Maclaren, depending on your search engine results):

“Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

That’s one of the truest sentences ever uttered (no matter who said it).

Every one of your customers is dealing with something. And often, it’s something painful and scary.

A bitter divorce, perhaps. Grief over the loss of a loved one. A grim diagnosis from out of the blue. A child in trouble.

Just be sure of this: The face on that Zoom call? There’s some kind of drama taking place behind it. So...

Be kind to your customers today. Not because it’s good for business (it is), but because it’s the right thing to do.

(It’s also the way we want others to treat us when we’re struggling.)

Here’s to empathy in business.