The Customer Is Not Always Right—And That’s Okay
For over a century, businesses have lived and died by one golden rule: The customer is always right. It’s been plastered on posters, repeated in training sessions, and used to justify every kind of unreasonable demand imaginable. Employees in retail, hospitality, tech, and every industry in between have heard it so often, it feels like law.
But it’s not a law. It’s not even right.
The phrase was never meant to mean what we think it means today. And the more businesses bend over backward to accommodate every customer, the more damage they do to their employees, their bottom line, and sometimes, even their good customers.
Where Did This Phrase Even Come From?
The saying is often credited to Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of the Selfridges department store in London, who used the phrase as a marketing slogan in the early 1900s. However, historical sources show that the phrase was also used by retail magnates like Marshall Field and César Ritz in the early 20th century to encourage exceptional customer service.
While it may have originally been about preventing businesses from deceiving customers, it quickly mutated into something much more extreme:
"The customer is always right—even when they’re wrong."
"Give them whatever they want, no matter how unreasonable."
"Employees must tolerate bad behavior because service comes first."
Frank Farrington wrote in Mill Supplies in 1914 that this idea ignored reality, stating:
"If we adopt the policy of admitting whatever claims the customer makes to be proper, and if we always settle them at face value, we shall be subjected to inevitable losses."
Over time, businesses distorted the original meaning to prioritize customers at all costs—and we’re all paying the price.
How "The Customer Is Always Right" Created a Toxic Business Culture
If you’ve ever worked in customer service, hospitality, retail, or client-facing roles, you already know the problem. Customers know they can get away with bad behavior. Businesses reward them for it. And employees pay the price.
Take a look at ClientsFromHell.net, a website dedicated to showcasing the worst customer interactions imaginable. Graphic designers, writers, and developers share nightmare stories of clients who demand unlimited revisions for free, refuse to pay invoices, or expect work well outside of the original agreement because "the customer is always right."
The same themes show up on TikTok and YouTube Shorts, where entire content careers have been built around exposing just how ridiculous customer demands can be:
🔹 Retail workers dealing with entitled "Karens."
🔹 Restaurant staff dealing with customers who demand free food for made-up reasons.
🔹 Freelancers being ghosted by clients who "didn’t like the final product", even after approving it.
🔹 Tech support reps being yelled at for following the company's own policies, or due to the ineptitude of the customer.
A report from NIST’s Blogrige reinforces this, noting that businesses that over-accommodate bad customers often suffer from high employee turnover, lower productivity, and even revenue loss. It’s exhausting. And the worst part? It’s bad business.
Why Prioritizing Bad Customers Hurts Good Customers
When businesses bend over backward for the loudest, most demanding customers, they create an environment where everything gets skewed in favor of bad behavior. Employees are forced to tolerate abuse under the guise of "customer service," and the good customers? They’re stuck waiting while resources are funneled into appeasing the most unreasonable people in the room.
This isn’t just frustrating, it’s also bad business - for your employees and your bottom line. High turnover, frustrated teams, and endless exceptions for difficult customers drain profitability and morale. Worse, it teaches customers that the more they push, the more they’ll get, encouraging the very behavior that businesses claim to want to prevent.
Of course, not all customers who are distraught or upset with their service are bad customers. Sometimes they’re rightfully irritated.
There are ways to identify and deal with bad customers. The psychology behind what makes someone a bad client/customer is intricate and can consist of many different factors, from trying to take control of the situation, disappointment and unmet expectations, social influences, to attention seeking behaviors. Some of these things can be rectified just through active listening, but others are out of your control.
So how do we stop rewarding the worst customers at the expense of everyone else?
It’s Time to Put Employees First
Companies with strong customer service don’t prioritize customers over employees. They build cultures where both can succeed.
1. Support Employees First
Happy employees = better customer experiences. Companies that invest in training, set clear expectations, and empower employees to make decisions see better service outcomes across the board.
So, my philosophy has always been, if you can put staff first, your customer second and shareholders third, effectively, in the end, the shareholders do well, the customers do better, and [you] yourself are happy. - Sir Richard Branson
2. Fire Bad Customers
Yes, you can fire customers. And you should.
If a customer is costing more than they bring in, harassing employees, or taking advantage of company policies, they aren’t worth it. The best businesses know that not every customer is worth keeping.
If you need help in this area, The Hartford has a really great article on how to do so (and even includes some sample scripts you can use).
3. Set Boundaries That Protect Both Sides
Good customer service isn’t about sacrificing employee well-being. It’s about creating clear policies that protect both employees and customers.
Instead of "The customer is always right," what if businesses adopted:
>> "The right customers matter, and so do the employees who serve them."
>> "Mutual respect creates the best service experiences."
>> "Good service should never come at the cost of employee well-being."
Because when employees feel safe, supported, and respected, they go above and beyond for the right customers.
OR
You can just do what some businesses are doing, and set the expectation of customer service (or lack thereof) early on in the relationship.
Final Thought
The next time someone tells you "The customer is always right," ask them: "At what cost?"
Because prioritizing toxic customers at the expense of employees doesn’t make a business stronger. It makes it weaker.
What’s your take? Have you ever worked somewhere that bent over backward for bad customers? Let’s talk.