The Customer Is Always Right!

My family often calls me “The Ultimate Consumer”. I have been known to become obsessed with certain companies’ products and services – I am a Costco nut and swear by Verizon’s wireless network. If you are like me, you never give companies the benefit of the doubt, and even when they have earned your respect you continue to judge them. But is it true that the widely used mantra The Customer is Always Right really puts companies on the best path to prosperity? For the companies that I obsess over, it could not be further from the truth. Good companies listen to their customers, great companies correctly adapt to their customers, bankrupt companies believe that the customer is always right. Don’t agree with me? Go ask Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors how their decision to shift production to trucks and SUV’s in order to meet customers’ growing demand is going.  The best companies succeed by continuously innovating, creating great products and providing valuable services. Yes, they listen intently to their customers, but is the customer always right? The short answer is no.