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"The customer is always right" is a motto or slogan which exhorts service staff to give a high priority to

customer satisfaction Customer satisfaction (often abbreviated as CSAT) is a term frequently used in marketing. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as "the number of ...

. It was popularised by pioneering and successful retailers such as

Harry Gordon Selfridge Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sr. (11 January 1858 – 8 May 1947) was an American retail magnate who founded the London-based department store Selfridges. His 20-year leadership of Selfridges led to his becoming one of the most respected and wealthy ...

, John Wanamaker and

Marshall Field Marshall Field (August 18, 1834January 16, 1906) was an American entrepreneur and the founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores. His business was renowned for its then-exceptional level of quality and customer ...

. They advocated that customer complaints should be treated seriously so that customers do not feel cheated or deceived. This attitude was novel and influential when misrepresentation was rife and '' caveat emptor'' (let the buyer beware) was a common legal maxim. Variations include "''le client n'a jamais tort''" (the customer is never wrong) which was the slogan of hotelier

César Ritz César Ritz (23 February 1850 – 24 October 1918) was a Swiss hotelier and founder of several hotels, most famously the Hôtel Ritz in Paris and the Ritz and Carlton Hotels in London (the forerunners of the modern Ritz-Carlton Hotel Compan ...

who said, "If a diner complains about a dish or the wine, immediately remove it and replace it, no questions asked". A variation frequently used in Germany is "''der Kunde ist König''" (the customer is king), while in Japan the motto ''"okyakusama wa kamisama desu"'' () meaning "the customer is a god", is common. It was pointed out as early as 1914 that this view ignores that customers can be dishonest, have unrealistic expectations, and/or try to misuse a product in ways that void the guarantee. "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." The work concluded "If the customer is made perfectly to understand what it means for him to be right, what right on his part is, then he can be depended on to be right if he is honest, and if he is dishonest, a little effort should result in catching him at it." An article a year later by the same author addressed the ''caveat emptor'' aspect while raising many of the same points as the earlier piece.

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