The customer is always right, except sometimes.
Saturday, July 26th, 2008
Posted by David Tedman
* This blog post is part of Invoke’s participation in the 2008 Vancouver Blogathon for Charity
I want to meet the person that came up with that expression. Not because I’m angry or anything, but because I want to know if he/she still stands behind that expression. Maybe in the “mom-and-pop-shop”
days where prices were pretty much the same, there were no big box stores, and everyone had to rely on the personality of their storefront / brand. “The customer is always right” became a mantra for almost anyone who thought they needed to unconditionally put the customers needs and wants before even their own needs to stay competitive.
It was the rallying cry that defined the ethics of the business-person that you wanted to do business with. Who wouldn’t want to do business with someone that always said “Yes”. These people are harder to find nowadays. You can tell them apart by the expressions they use like “there’s no free lunches” (I beg to differ) and “early bird gets the worm” (OK that works, sometimes).
Now as a partner of an interactive agency, I think the opposite, sometimes. I think in our industry, as in others, the customer isn’t always right. They may have great ideas, vision, and brand positioning, but why would they be coming to us if they wanted to hear, “yes, we think you’re doing everything right”. A customer wants to be treated with respect and understanding, and I think that expression gives people a false sense of justification.
Now, this isn’t to say that the vendor is always, or even mostly right, and the customer does pay the bills, so it’s taken with a grain of salt. I’ve never used “the customer is always right” and I won’t, because it’s effectively exonerates the customer of any wrongdoing and exempts a transaction from reason and accountability.
In my opinion it’s a dying expression, but I’d still love to meet the person that first coined it.
