Top 5 reasons why 'the customer is always right' is wrong

The phrase "The customer is always right" was originally coined in 1909 by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge's department store in London, and is typically used by businesses to convince customers that they will get good service at this company and convince employees to give customers good service.

However, I think businesses should abandon this phrase once and for all - ironically, because it leads to worse customer service.

Here are the top five reasons why "The Customer Is Always Right" is wrong.

It Makes Employees Unhappy

Gordon Bethune is a brash Texan (as is Herb Kelleher, coincidentally) who is best known for turning Continental Airlines around "From Worst to First," a story told in his book of the same title from 1998. He wanted to make sure that both customers and employees liked the way Continental treated them, so he made it very clear that the maxim "the customer is always right" didn't hold sway at Continental.

It Gives Abrasive Customers an Unfair Advantage

Using the slogan "The customer is always right," abusive customers can demand just about anything -- they're right by definition, aren't they? This makes the employees' jobs that much harder when trying to rein them in.

Also, it means that abusive people get better treatment and conditions than nice people. That always seemed wrong to me, and it makes much more sense to be nice to the nice customers to keep them coming back.

Some Customers Are Bad for Business

Most businesses think that "the more customers the better". But some customers are quite simply bad for business.

Danish IT service provider Service Gruppen proudly tell this story:

One of our service technicians arrived at a customer's site for a maintenance task, and to his great shock was treated very rudely by the customer.