The whole saying is actually “The customer is always right, in matters of taste.”
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.
TIL
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?
Notice how a delicate ego has no place in business?
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.
The full quote is "The customer is always right in matters of taste."
And it was never a saying, it was a commercial tagline.
In matters of taste.
They're still idiots. But people forget that second part, and become extremely entitled little shits.
The problem isn't the customer's expectations (within rational limits of course) the problem is all the levels of managent giving the customer satisfaction because they don't understans, and always forget thr last part about taste.
I know, that if I go to a Walmart and start a big enough fuss, Walmart will give as little as they can (to often monetarily desperate) to get them to stop causing a scene.
I worked in electronics, and per protocol had to inspect a returned PS2. It was physically beat up, had paint splotches on it, and it would not power on, and thr serial number was missing.
I said no. Simple as that. Not paid enough to fight customers. They wanted a manager. Two hours later they walked out with fucking cash.
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."
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.
Sorry I mean the whole idea of the customer is always right . You mostly have shitty treatment here.
Do you mean the shitty customers get shitty treatment? My experience with shopping while in Germany was no different than at home in the US. Except the one store I went to where no one spoke English and I had to ask a random person outside for help. But, I mean... I'm not one of those jackass customers 🤷🏻♂️
No, I mean entering a bakery and being ignored or the staff is annoyed with you before you say a word.
At the bike shop they get annoyed because the breaks of your beater bike are rusty.
At the Deutsche Bahn, they get annoyed with you if their train came late, so you miss your last connection and be stranded, so you ask how to solve this problem.
Of course most interaction are neutral and the bad ones just stick to memory.
I'm happy for you that you were lucky, I traveled a lot in the western world and had nowhere an experience as bad as the general experience here. Maybe in the Netherlands and Belgium.
We are kinda infamous for bad customer service. And there are 100s of experiences you find on Google. Like this:
The trick is finding which customers are entitled idiots and un-customer them.
We became much better at doing that during covid. We all have enough stress already, we don't need to take yours too!
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
Is it even widely used anymore?
Only by asshole customers.
You’ve got a point but remember what we say, The aphorism is always right.
So let’s cool it with the anti-aphorism talk eh?
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.
Last but not least, I bought the smallest car available because I wanted this. Most people buy big cars because they are influenced by the things around them, it doesn't mean that they are rude to the cashiers.
the customer is always an asshole
Although perhaps that's not the best example of a service worker lol
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The maxim "The Customer is always right" comes from management and or ownership of a customer/retail business whose purpose was to promote the feeling in current and potential customers, that their needs were paramount to all other concerns, as a way for the business to procure and retain more customers, so that the business thrives and profit is made.
Employees feelings and work environment were purposefully ignored as being far less important than the income generated from customers who experience complete satisfaction in the transaction of money for goods and services, and can depend on their being equitable recompense should any issue or problem occur, to their ultimate benefit.
This was never an employee concerned protocol, only a customer and profit driven protocol, which businesses employed, and still sometimes employ.
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