The customer is NOT always right
Why do we persist in maintaining that the customer is always right, when we all know that isn’t true?
Perhaps you’ve patronized a business that had a sign on the wall saying something like: “We have only two rules. Rule #1: The customer is always right. Rule #2: If the customer is wrong, see Rule #1.”
It’s fashionable to say that the customer is always right. But I’ve seen people do some pretty silly things because of this attitude. In reality, the customer is not always right, and we all know it. Sometimes the customer is unreasonable, uninformed, irrational, or flat out wrong. We’re all customers ourselves, and many of us are also providers of products or services, so we have experience on both sides of this issue.
I prefer to say, “The customer is not always right. But the customer always has a point, and that point must be understood and respected.” As a customer, you might not always get what you want when you have a need or a problem. But you’re certainly entitled to have a service provider or merchant take your concerns seriously and understand them so you can achieve a satisfactory result.
Software development is one area in which people abuse the notion that the customer is always right. A software project often begins with a customer…
