ACCORDING to this business owner, the customer isn’t always right.

The owner of Peel Zoo in Western Australia immediately got defensive after his zoo was criticised by a mother who hadn’t set foot in the facility.

Mum Dana Harrison sent her children to the zoo with their German au pair, but they returned home disappointed by their experience.

She voiced her concerns in a Facebook message to the Perth Zoo. But the owner wasn’t having any of it, so he lashed out big time.

Owner David Cobbold replied to Dana in a long, condescending reply questioning the “absurdity” of her statements. He called her an “imbecile” and suggested she enjoyed “self-righteous indignation”.

It all started when Dana messaged the Zoo on Facebook stating she would never be returning.

“The feedback was 3/4 of the animals weren’t there and they finished looking at everything in an hour,” she wrote. “It cost $50 for my 2 kids under 5 yrs old and my au pair to visit for an hour!”

“It would have cost them less to visit the Perth Zoo … she was really looking forward to seeing the koala as the highlight but even the koala was on holidays!”

David, however, was so affronted by her words that he hit back in stinging fashion.

He queried how two children so young could assert that 75 per cent of the animals weren’t there and labelled his visitors a “mathematically challenged-triumvirate.”

“I consider it highly unlikely, nay impossible, for ‘2 kids under 5 yrs old’ to be capable of solving this equation,” he replied.

“I also consider it impossible for ‘german [sic] au pair’ to solve the equation regardless of her mathematical ability, because she would have no way of knowing the total number of animals in our collection.”

He went on to say the zoo had 78 enclosures and all but one of them was occupied with Sherman, the wombat, moving that day to his new home in Bunbury.

“You have simply jumped to a conclusion because it is convenient for you to do so … The jump enables you with the feeling of self-righteous indignation that you obviously enjoy,” he continued.

“My own conclusion is to thank you for not ‘returning to (our) zoo.’

“I prefer serving more intelligent creatures.”

The woman replied: “I have no words, you seem to have taken them all.”

She posted the exchange on Facebook on Friday calling it shockingly rude and suggested David needed an “attitude adjustment”.

David was soon confronted publicly about his response after the exchange went viral, but has repeated his comments, insisting ‘keyboard warriors’ should not take aim at a small business.

“If it took them an hour, they spent about 45 seconds per enclosure in that case and they must have had some kind of wormhole to get them from one to another,” he told WA Today.

“She has a right to comment. We have a right to rebut. If she is going to jump to a conclusion and end a relationship and without saying anything analytical or reasoned or well-balanced, I think she’s an imbecile and I have a right to say ‘get back in your box.’

David again continued his argument in a 3000-word Facebook rant saying he didn’t believe in the age-old adage ‘the customer is always right’.

He thanked the people who supported him, and continued to pick apart the woman’s complaint.

“I continue my quest to stand up against bullies, trolls, and tanty-pants princesses, who feel entitled to put you down because “the customer is always right.” They are wrong and I’m not afraid to say so,” he wrote.

“I will defend myself, my family, and my zoo with every drop of ink, and every pixel at my disposal. I have a voice, as do you.”

This article originally appeared on Kidspot.