Some of the worst managers (and coworkers, and customers) are people who take this literally and without criticism. The phrase is a handy way to express that customer service is important, and the customer should be given the benefit of the doubt whenever possible.
That’s fine. However, it does not mean that a person turns into an infallible god upon becoming the customer of a business. The only people I’ve ever seen take it 100% seriously are customers who know they’re wrong, and managers who are too lazy to do their jobs.
There was a story of this guy who called customer service to complain about TV cable quality or something, threating them to cancel the contract. They went ahead and cancelled it and he retracted, saying that they should've offered a price drop, but it was too late, he would have to wait for an "installer" to visit him.
I know this story... but from the other side. A friend of mine was the support agent on the other end of this scenario. Had a customer call in, go on an abusive rant, then threaten to cancel. He just cancelled them on the spot and told them the whole be a reconnect fee if he wanted to restore services.
He got in trouble for that one, but absolutely worth it.
Is that how you close an account at a retail bank? Last time I did that it required sitting down with a manager and I still had to go in twice before they actually did it.
I used to wait tables, and one time I had one of those tables where just everything goes wrong. After it was finally all over and they left, THEY FUCKING CAME BACK TO TALK ABOUT IT SOME MORE.
That's not how this works dude. You leave, you write a bad review, we all go on with our lives. If I was actually a bad waiter, I'd get fired soon enough, you don't have to worry about it.