Talk:The customer is always right

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Full quote?[edit]

I've heard from multiple sources that the full quote is "the customer is always right about what they want," meaning they know what kind of product or service they're looking for. Does anyone else have info on a retailer that used this phrase? BrotherSulayman (talk) 07:50, 6 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I heard that the original was "The customer is always right in his own mind," meaning that he honestly thinks that he has a legitimate complaint and that the retailer should politely listen to what he has to say, even if the customer is in fact wrong. 216.255.165.198 (talk) 00:02, 22 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have also heard this but haven't found a reliable source to reference. Hugstar (talk) 20:09, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I heard that the full quote was "The customer is always right in matters of taste". Teo8976 (talk) 19:46, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This has been added to the article a few times recently. I can't find any source for it, and the existing 20th century sources (from 1910s through to 1944) are very clearly about whether customer complaints should be taken in good faith, in a sales world where historically they were generally not, with no mention at all of "matters of taste".

It's possible that the 1910s phrase evolved from an earlier, longer truism about matters of taste, although this seems such a statement of the obvious (why would a shopkeeper risk losing a sale by challenging the customer's taste choices?) that I'd be surprised people bothered to say it. Belbury (talk) 08:01, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like the recent corrections may be zombie edits derived from a YouTube short from early March 2024, where a character describes it as "the full quote", and their boss looks it up on his phone and says "Jesus, you're right!" and makes a point about the service industry. Perhaps the YouTuber wrote the sketch on a day when the Wikipedia article did actually say that.

But I guess people who watch that video are looking the quote up on their phones and finding this page, which doesn't say anything about the "full quote", and are changing the text to back the video up. --Belbury (talk) 18:30, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Missing Context Second Paragraph[edit]

The Second Paragraph quotes from Frank Farrington's 1914 work and refers to it as "The Work" but never names it or indicates what sort of work it is.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:c7f:4c51:dd00:9d2a:5d0d:4bc0:b56a (talk • contribs) 07:04, 21 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]