The customer is right, even if he's wrong

The customer is king is a trite business mantra. But exactly, how do companies make it happen?

- REY ELBO

If I will define it my way, that means giving in to a customer request, no matter how unreasonable it is, like when a customer requests 10 sachets of catsup to accompany one simple cheese hamburger.

It happened many decades back. I can't forget the case of an old, thin, short man, probably in his 80s, who went inside a KFC outlet near my place. He brought inside the restaurant around three pieces of freshly baked pandesal from a nearby Pan de Manila outlet. I saw it happening right in my face as he bypassed the queue for prior-ity customers.

He was wearing a long-sleeved, dirty white polo shirt with a hint of insect repellants, neatly tucked in belt-less dark grey pants emblazoned with "RM Manlapat" custom tailor tag, a popular shop for men in the 1970s. I took a watchful eye on this fellow who had the confidence of a war veteran but with the guarded smile of a jueteng (Filipino numbers game) bet collector.

He cozied to a young KFC service clerk who looked like his granddaughter. He pleaded: "Ineng, pakibuksan mo nga etong lata ng Vienna sausage." I was expecting Ineng (a Tagalog nickname for a young girl) to politely decline Lolo's request. But she smiled at Lolo, got the can, and hurried to the kitchen.

In less than a minute, she came back to the old man with the ready-to-eat finger-thick, pink sausages as she carefully watched her steps to avoid spilling the can's saline. Then Lolo asked for a glass of water.