Who Decided the Customer Is Always Right

Stores have said "the customer is always right" for over 100 years. In 1909, one told a magazine the customer was "wrong, of course, lots of times." So who decided on that sentence, and why would a store promise something it knew wasn't true? We dig through old newspapers, a 1908 London book about the hotel king César Ritz, a 1930 debate about returned goods, call-center research and a 1961 stage moment in Japan. By the end, you'll know where the famous sentence really comes from, what the stores actually meant by it, and where the bill for it lands today. CHAPTERS 00:00 "Wrong, of Course, Lots of Times" 00:57 Who Said It First 02:40 Why Stores Needed It 03:59 The Math of a Sent-Back Plate 04:51 Who Pays for It 06:30 The Second Bill 07:29 The Customer Is God, and the Bosses Who Said No 09:13 Back to the Return Counter SOURCES Garson O'Toole, "The Customer Is Always Right," Quote Investigator, 2015 (updated 2025): https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/10... Annette Austin, "When Woman Buys," Good Housekeeping, December 1909: https://archive.org/details/sim_good-... Ralph Nevill and C. E. Jerningham, Piccadilly to Pall Mall, Duckworth, 1908: https://archive.org/details/piccadill... "Carrying Out Marshall Field's Precept, 'The Customer Is Always Right'," Printers' Ink, March 16, 1910: https://archive.org/details/sim_marke... William Nelson Taft, "Is the Customer Always Right? No," The Rotarian, April 1930: https://archive.org/details/sim_rotar... Montgomery Ward & Co., Catalogue No. 13, 1875: https://archive.org/details/catalogue... Golden Book of the Wanamaker Stores, 1911: https://archive.org/details/goldenboo... Grandey, Dickter and Sin, "The customer is not always right," Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2004: https://doi.org/10.1002/job.252 Rafaeli et al., "When customers exhibit verbal aggression, employees pay cognitive costs," Journal of Applied Psychology, 2012: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22582... Wang, Liao, Zhan and Shi, "Daily Customer Mistreatment and Employee Sabotage Against Customers," Academy of Management Journal, 2011: https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2011.6026... Haruo Minami, official website (profile and his own account): https://www.minamiharuo.jp/profile/in... Nippon.com, customer harassment in Japan (UA Zensen survey), September 6, 2024: https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d0... Aquaxis Law Office, Tokyo customer harassment ordinance, Legal 500, March 4, 2025: https://legal500.com/developments/tho... Lee Ferran, Sprint cuts off customers who called too often, ABC News, July 10, 2007: https://abcnews.com/Business/story?id... Kevin and Jackie Freiberg, Nuts! (a book about Southwest Airlines), Bard Press, 1996 CREDITS Some illustrations here were created with AI image tools (gpt image (Codex image_gen)) and edited by us. Music: original tracks created with Google's Lyria AI. This video is for education and entertainment. #CustomerIsAlwaysRight #CustomerService #BusinessHistory Subscribe for the stories behind the brands you know:    / @benbehindthebrand   Ben Behind the Brand explores surprising company stories, corporate rivalries, and the decisions that changed business.