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How the simple phrase ‘the customer is always right’ gave shoppers a license to abuse workers
The pandemic has revealed how much power has been ceded to American consumers — or, more accurately, how much power they believe they should have.
If there’s one unifying theory among American shoppers, it’s that they’re always right.
After all, that’s what we’ve been taught to believe for over a century: that the customer is never wrong, at least inside the four walls of a Starbucks or a Walmart. It’s an ethos that has guided everything from the rise of early department stores to post-World War II suburban malls — and, in more recent times, e-commerce behemoths like Amazon.
But now, 18 months into the pandemic, it’s clear that not only is that mantra indelibly baked into the American shopping experience, it’s also dangerous. It’s created a sense of entitlement among shoppers that has led to aggression and even violence toward retail workers.
“We’ve gone past the point where the retailer was in charge to a point in society where the customer is in charge,” Mark Cohen, an adjunct professor and director of retail studies at Columbia University, told Insider.
