And like: 

The deification of the customer has us all mesmerized. We are all customers, and we know full well that there are times when we are not right. Whoever said 'the customer is always right' never served behind a shop counter. Sometimes the customer is a right royal pain in the backside. 

Demanding of your people that they take an abject stance when confronted by a customer is no way to achieve good customer service. Your people have their integrity; they are as deserving of respect as your customers. The basic rule should be 'civility - but not servility'. A meeting of employee and customer should be a meeting of equals: two human beings, equally deserving of respect. 

You shouldn't ask your staff to prostrate themselves before the great god customer - 'do as you would be done by' is quite adequate. It's also more realistic. 

more

"It takes time and pressure to make a diamond" - Maya Angelou                    "If it's not good enough, you're not close enough" - Robert Capa                   "Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand" - Chinese proverb                    "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them" - Albert Einstein                    "Disarm with candour" - David Ogilvy                     "Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative" - Johnny Mercer                    "Dib dib doo, the cat's got flu, the dog's got chickenpox and out goes you " - playground chant                   ""There's no point having sharp images if you have fuzzy ideas" - Jean-Luc Godard                   "No knowledge ever reaches the brain without first passing through the organs of the senses" - Laura Esquivel                    "Where there is no vision, the people perish" - The Book of Revelations