Is the customer always right?

THERE is a not-so-quiet civil war being played out in department stores, hotels, airports and call centers--most anywhere you find consumers and the people who serve them.

It's not a war of bullets and bombs but of civility and expectations. Like all battles, it's tending to bring out the worst in everyone involved.

Consumers believe they are routinely mistreated--from rode flight attendants to long lines at checkout counters to clerks yapping with their colleagues to those insufferable voice recognition phone systems where mounds of information must be provided before you're even placed on hold.

But the service folks have their war stories, too. Like unpleasant customers looking for every conceivable price break--even when they're not owed any (or haven't you heard of the jerks who buy clothes at the Salvation Army and then try returning them at Nordstrom for cash). Then, when the merchant says enough is enough, they go ballistic. A recent survey of consumers found that 28 percent admitted yelling or raising their voice at a customer-service representative in the past year; 8 percent say they have cursed.

It's easy to blame the corporate side for cutting back on staff and training, and then relying way too much on technology to pick up the slack, all in the name of making a good quarterly number. There's certainly some truth here, but it's not the whole story.

What's really happening is the democratization of products and services--or at least the marketing of such. Thanks to an ever-inflated sense of entitlement, along with America's Wal-Mart mentality, we expect the best of everything and at the lowest possible price point.

You can now buy a BMW for around $30,000. Top designers are peddling their downscaled wares on the Home Shopping Network. A round-trip fare to New York can be had for less than 300 bucks. The symbols of affluence aren't what they used to be.

And yet, you still get what you pay for. Auto writers wince at that low-end Beemer, and a so-called designer outfit on HSN is made with much cheaper fabric than you'd find on Rodeo Drive or Worth Avenue. As for that trip to New York, well, being crammed into coach doesn't exactly measure up to an oversized leather seat in first class.

Of course there is a difference--even if we sometimes try to think there isn't. Plastic paneling isn't the same as wood and a $20 shirt just won't wear like a $200 one.

Hotels are notorious for fuzzing up these boundaries because, after all, they have rooms to fill each night and operators figure that getting $200 for a $400 room is better than letting it sit empty. The problem is that the customer expects to keep getting that $200 rate--even after demand picks up and there are other guests willing to pay full freight.

At some point, reality sets in and $200 only gets a $200 room. One high-end hotelier told me that when the grumbling gets out of hand, he finds it necessary to tell the guest that he might want to consider accommodations elsewhere.

American consumerism could certainly use some clearer lines of demarcation when determining value, but don't hold your breath. No self-respecting marketer would dare question the pretense that everyone can afford everything. Except, of course, they can't--and when that logic finally hits home, whether through shoddy workmanship or indifferent service, the battle lines are drawn.

The customer still thinks he's always fight. The customer could use a wake-up call.

Mark Lacter is editor of the Business Journal