The Customer Is Always Right
Is the Customer Always Right?
“El cliente siempre tiene la razón.”
Without customers, you don't have a business! So with that in mind, the customer has to be always right. Because in order to make them buy your product or service, you have to know them, understand what they need, and know where to find them.
It was Aaron Dinin, with a recent piece he wrote, that made me contemplate the phrase, "the customer is always right.” Because… are they? I find myself often taking a slightly different angle and stating that most customers know what they want, but they don't necessarily know what they need.
The phrase "the customer is always right” goes back to the era of brick-and-mortar department stores. At that time, it created differentiation and a competitive advantage for those who embraced it.
Interestingly enough, around the world, there are similar yet slightly different variations of the same phrase:
"Le client n'a jamais tort" (the customer is never wrong) was the slogan of Swiss hotelier César Ritz, founder of Ritz Carlton hotels.
In Spanish the phrase is “El cliente siempre tiene la razón.” In Italian, it’s “il cliente ha sempre ragione.” Both phrases translate to “the customer always has a reason.”
In Germany the phrase is "der Kunde ist König" (the customer is king).
The Japanese go even further and have the motto, "okyakusama wa kamisama desu" (お客様は神様です), meaning "the customer is a god.”
Personally, I like the Spanish and Italian version, “the customer always has a reason.” Instead of simply accepting it focuses on the why. Understanding the reason provides a learning and improvement opportunity. It also allows a salesperson to potentially offer an alternative. Because the customer knows what they want, but maybe there is an even better way to address their need.
Aaron Dinin also discusses the motivation of why businesses instill those phrases in their associates: “Business isn’t about making customers happy. Business is about monetizing customers. I don’t mean that businesses shouldn’t try to make customers happy, but I also recognize that making customers happy isn’t why businesses exist.”
He goes on to state that the phrase also does not mean that the customer should get whatever the customer wants because, for businesses, that strategy doesn’t make financial sense. He suggests translating the phrase to say, “engage with customers in ways that make them most comfortable.”
“It is a strategy that understands the fundamental challenge of customer acquisition: people are creatures of habit. To attract new customers, businesses have to convince people to change the habits they already have. Once I’ve convinced people to change their habits enough to try my product or service, I need to keep them as a customer by helping them build new habits that involve buying from me. I’ll do this by trying to make them as comfortable as possible with my company.”
Since the phrases' origin is in B2C, is there a difference in B2B? The last part of Aaron’s article sounds very much like he is thinking of B2B. The vast majority of products and services in this space address a need that is already addressed. The customer is spending on a solution today, their current ‘habit.’ And the job of a salesperson is to change this habit. It requires the proverbial ‘better mousetrap’ or at least the appearance of a better mousetrap.
Today’s B2B buyers have completed anywhere between 60 and 90% of their buying process before any salesperson gets involved. More often than not, the hard reality is that customers have begun the buying long before suppliers can start selling. So, by the time a supplier is called in, customers have already figured everything out.
And then there are really only two directions for a salesperson to take:
Accept their terms: the customer is a king, a god, and always right.
Challenge their thinking and change their habit: they know what they want, but you have something that is better at addressing their need.
“Do you teach customers something new and important about their business that they cannot learn on their own? Because if your biggest competitor is the customer’s ability to learn, then that’s what you’ll need to do to win.” - Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon, and Nicholas Toman
Contact us to find out how a fractional or interim sales leader is able to help.
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Aaron Dinin - “The Customer Is Always Right” Is the Most Misunderstood Phrase In Business.
Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon, and Nicholas Toman – If Your Customer Is Always Right, You’re in Trouble.
Photo by author