The Customer Isn’t Always Right—Here’s What We Did About it
The Customer Isn’t Always Right—Here’s What We Did About it
What started out as a bad power dynamic can be flipped to equalize the relationship.
Photo: Getty Images
The email wasn’t abusive or harassing, but it was worse than brusque—it was disrespectful. Downright rude.
I was several years into business and had long since outsourced the general inbox to a team member, which had been huge for my mental load. No longer did I have to carve out time to send a PDF or troubleshoot a link. But more impactfully, handing over the inbox meant I didn’t have to engage with the occasional troll—someone who isn’t even a client but reaches out just to point out what they don’t like about our marketing, or how I sound, or how I look.
Until it was a client.
“We got a pretty nasty email from Fred [we’ll call him Fred],” my COO emailed, forwarding me his note. “Not sure how to respond.”
I held my breath as I read the email and a phrase popped into my mind: The customer is always right.
This mantra, which has been business gospel for over a century, suddenly struck me as deeply problematic. Where did it come from, and why on earth had it become dogma?
Where it all started
The phrase first appeared in print in 1905, attributed to Chicago retail magnate Marshall Field (though hotel owner César Ritz used a French version—“le client n’a jamais tort,” the customer is never wrong—around the same time). It emerged as a counter to the notion of “buyer beware” in an era when customers couldn’t trust merchants and had to inspect everything before purchase, with no recourse for problems. In a world where any car could be a lemon, promising “the customer is always right” was progressive.
But even then, the actual quote from Field’s business policy was reportedly more nuanced: “Assume that the customer is right until it is plain beyond all question that he is not”—a far more complex position than how we use it today.
These days, in practice, “the customer is always right” means something that feels icky to me, a way of saying, “If you offer something for money, your job is to remain polite and accommodating no matter what, because I’m the one holding the wallet.”
Ew.
What started as a trust-building measure in 1905 has morphed into something else entirely—a license for bad behavior, an ethic that is purely mercenary.
The power dynamic nobody talks about
It’s worth noting that the mantra established itself over a period when customers were predominantly women and business owners were predominantly men: by the mid-twentieth century, 75% of purchases for the household were made by women. At the same time, a woman typically couldn’t get a loan in her own name until 1974, never mind start a business. In this historical context, “the customer is always right” served as a kind of corrective to a gendered power imbalance, giving women a sense of agency in commercial spaces where they, at least at the register, held the purse strings.
But these days, women are all over business: handling email accounts, founding companies, interacting with potential consumers 24/7. In this more equal world, the notion of “the customer is always right” as a corrective to gender imbalance is antiquated. Ironically, it can actually enable sexist behavior under the guise of canonized commercial ethics (“I’m not treating you this way because I’m a man and you’re a woman—I’m treating you this way because I’m the customer and I’m mad!”).
When I’ve received emails calling me a “scam” or worse (“scam” is the PG version) because I didn’t accept them into my application-based program, my husband has asked why I’m so shaken. “It feels like someone walked into my house and punched me in the face,” I’ve said. Because that’s essentially what it is—a culturally sanctioned form of aggression that we’ve decided is acceptable because it’s, well, customer service.
How internet culture made it worse
This problematic dynamic has been turbocharged by internet culture, where there is a disturbing lack of expectation around what constitutes respectful speech toward a stranger. We’ve normalized a double standard whereby “the public” (i.e. “the customer”) is excused from virtually any standard of behavior, while individuals representing businesses are held to an impossible one: Absorb everything with little to no visible reaction.
Online, people say things to strangers they would never say face-to-face. The anonymity and distance of the internet have eroded basic norms of civility, which has bled into how people communicate with businesses—including direct, non-anonymous exchanges. An email signed with someone’s full name can contain language and accusations that would be unthinkable in person. And the expectation remains that we should smile and say “thank you for your feedback.”
But this dynamic isn’t healthy, and it’s certainly not reasonable to expect anyone—staff or business owner—to remain endlessly polite in the face of disrespect.
Our solution: The Kindness Policy
After that experience, we made a change. We instituted what we call our Kindness Policy, and we make every client agree to it before they join our program.
Here’s what it says: Clients are invited—encouraged, actually—to share all the feedback. We genuinely want to keep improving. But they also agree that they will not treat any fellow client or member of our staff with disrespect. To do so will cause them to forfeit their enrollment in our program.
In other words, we are vibe policing.
It has become a company value that we explicitly protect our staff in this policy, not just clients. The idea that employees deserve the same respect as paying customers has, more than once, caught someone off guard.
But since implementing the Kindness Policy, our team feels protected and valued. And our clients are happy as well. (The few who aren’t? They self-select out, which is exactly the point.)
Feedback is valuable, but respect isn’t negotiable, regardless of who’s writing the check. And that’s a business philosophy I can stand behind in 2026.
Other Possible Options
Kindness should always be practiced but in many industries having clients sign a kindness agreement is possible. One practice I used, in my department store days, was to tell my associates to never tell the customer no.If there is a situation that the associate doesn’t feel comfortable telling the customer no they are to say “I’m sorry I can authorize that, let me get a supervisor who can help you”.There are two factors at work in this approach;
1.Management is typically better equipped to handle a difficult situation.
2.Customers tend to respond more favorably to a manager.
If a customer continues to not show kindness remind them that you are there to help them and that it would be much easier to do so in a civil tone.
Are your associates consistently showing kindness even when you are not around?We measure your customer’s experience to give you a true picture.Give us a call, we are happy to serve you.
EXPERT OPINION BY BY MARY ADKINSAND CARL PHILLIPS
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