The whole saying is actually “The customer is always right, in matters of taste.”
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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This is the correct answer. All of the other explanations are dancing around this: no matter what YOU think of a particular product, if a customer is willing to buy it then YOUR opinion must be the wrong one.
I think OPs point was the exact opposite. They give three examples where "matters of taste" are narratives guided by boardroom profit in the last twenty years rather than actual consumer preference.
People didn't want bigger cars. Corporations made bigger cars to circumvent American fuel efficiency regulations (because it's cheaper to circumvent a law than it is to make a more efficient engine), and convinced consumers bigger is better. Size difference between the #1 selling truck in 1950 and 1990 is nothing compared to the difference between pre-CAFE and present day.
People don't want huge, fattening meals when they go out. It's cheaper for companies to give "more", "saltier", and "fattier" meals than it is to create "tastier" ones, and for the most part we've been hoodwinked again. I'm talking about the "buy one for here get one free to take home" promotions at Applebee's.
People have been convinced owning a home is "the American dream". Construction companies have found they can put a 2800sqft house on a .25 acre plot just as easily as they can a 1400sqft house, so that's all they build. "Starter homes" aren't as profitable as they used to be, so the companies are banking on the narrative they've created to force people out of apartments and into gigantic houses because it's the "American dream".
Breaking free of the brainwashing is great but then you're just PIMO the hellscape
Indeed. But it somehow morphed into "customers can abuse and harass staff at customer service jobs"
TBF, nobody unironically uses "the customer is always right", other than entitled boomers who want to speak to the manager...
Inevitably the manager turns out to be some kid who isn't any other than the staff member, and has no more authority anyway because the real powers that be are all in corporate offices.
The manager only has any real power if the business is privately owned not a branch of some megacorp.
Hey, as that former low-level supervisor kid, I resemble that remark!
I thought it was “in matters of paste”
Do you have a source for this? I have tried to search for it but haven't found anything, I'm starting to suspect that it is apocryphal.
No it’s not. The original coined saying is, “The customer is always right.” “In matters of taste” was added much later to try to temper the idiocy, and has never really widely caught on.
The saying has been corrupted. Selfridge originally meant the saying to mean customer complaints should be treated seriously so that customers do not feel cheated or deceived. Nowadays people take it to mean the customer can do no wrong and is king of all he surveys.
More that the customer has ultimate veto power over any deal. You can do everything absolutely perfectly, and the (potential) customer can still decide the deal is "wrong" and walk away completely.
You don't have to convert every potential customer into an actual customer, but an actual customer will only convert if they believe they are "right".
An actual customer can do no wrong, but not everyone who walks through your doors is an actual customer.
I always thought it was supposed to reference market sentiment.
If your company is focused on X, but is also doing Y, and the market is really taking up with Y, you need to focus on keeping Y alive and well. Makes for a successful company to respect the market's wishes, and allows you to pursue X while Y is subsidizing it.
If you insist that X is the future, and put Y on the back burner to focus on X, well, the market will find a competitor who is doing Y better than you, and the market will abandon you.
Spez? Elon? You there guys?
It really only applies if success of the company is your primary concern.
"The Customer is Always Right" originally referred to the pricing of an item. Meaning if the customer thinks it's a good price, then you've picked a good price. That's it. It was never meant to be used as an excuse to bend over backwards to your customer's every whim
No it didn’t. It always referred to customer service.
Damn it. I fell for another stupid internet fallacy.
I thought it was more about the design in the context of working with a client to make a custom product where they tell you the purpose and give you specs, you see that the product they are asking for sucks for the stated purpose and try to point that out but they argue it. At that point, just make the product they are asking for and let them sort out the rest. It'll probably mean more money for you because they'll be back to ask for the changes you originally suggested. Or who knows, maybe they are actually right.
In matters of taste.
They're still idiots. But people forget that second part, and become extremely entitled little shits.
“The customer is always right” is a bad maxim, just like “caveat emptor” that it replaced was a bad maxim.
A better one should be something like, “Valid customer complains should be taken seriously.” Sometimes business do something wrong and should have to fix them; other times, customers are full of it and should be informed as such.
The full quote is "The customer is always right in matters of taste."
Other people have covered the true definition, so let me pick apart your examples.
Bigger and less fuel efficient vehicles are being produced because of fleet emission standards, as trucks and SUVS don't count towards your "fleet" lineup. So companies are producing and pushing these hard, otherwise they will need to go mostly electric very quickly to meet emission standards. (It's stupid I know, but blame lobbying and very old policies made to protect the American truck market).
Bigger and more fattening meals are being produced because they can charge more and using less healthy ingredients is typically cheaper. Much of the cost of your meal is the labor. So restaurants would rather serve you 4x the average serving size of your favorite pasta dish for $26 than a healthy portion for $18. The cost difference for the ingredients are nearly negligible compared to overhead and labor.
All of this is about profits, no one actually asked for any of this (and good luck making businesses go backwards and give up profits). I don't know the specifics regarding the housing market and the trend towards building mcmansions, but I would bet there is a profit incentive and it's not purely demand driven as well.
I think the saying is an abstract concept and began because the customer is always right if the business is doing well or not, but somehow the meaning got twisted around to an abomination of "Customer is entitled to bully, throw a tantrum and be arrogant and demanding."
The trick is finding which customers are entitled idiots and un-customer them.
I don't understand how a "rude customer" is related to "most people buy big cars." Also, the customer is always right is an American thing, that may explain why I'm confused.
That saying was not meant to be interpreted as literally true - it was designed to extract more money from customers who would generate repeat business = moar profits.
As a German I had a good loud laugh about that.
Basically anyone living in a country older than about 150 years, has to deal with 17th century housing stock. My house wasn't originally constructed with indoor plumbing, that was added later. And not well may I add.
Maybe because that's not the full quote and you're misunderstanding the meaning. This is like when people think "survival of the fittest" means the strongest/fastest etc.
It is the full quote and OP is not misunderstanding its meaning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_customer_is_always_right
You’re thinking of a later retort that was added to try to change the quote.
Most people misunderstand the meaning, it's not each customer that is always rights, it's the customer base as a hole, but even that is meaningless when everything is owned by a handful of monopolies so consumers don't even have a choice.
Must people misunderstand the meaning, it's not each customer that is always rights, it's the customer base as a hole, but even that is meaningless when everything is owned by a handful of monopolies so consumers don't even have a choice.
Is it even widely used anymore?
Only by asshole customers.