In the grand scheme of things, the customer may have slightly more pull than the cashier ringing up their order, but it’s the CEO and the board of directors that control the narrative. That’s why we’re getting bigger and less fuel efficient vehicles, bigger and more fattening meal portions in restaurants, and bigger less affordable houses.
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.
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.
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.
“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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
