How “the customer is always right” led to harassment from retail workers

• The “customer is always right” mantra is ingrained into the American retail experience.
• Although it originated over a century ago, it was sustained by companies like Amazon.
• The pandemic has shown how much customers believe they should always get their way.

If there is one unifying theory among American buyers, it is that they are always right.

After all, we’ve been taught that for over a century: that the customer is never wrong, at least in the four walls of a Starbucks or Walmart. It’s an ethos that guided everything from the rise of early department stores to suburban mall malls after WWII – and more recently to e-commerce giants like Amazon.

But now, 18 months after the pandemic, it is clear that this mantra is not only indelibly burned into the American shopping experience, it is dangerous too. It has created a sense of entitlement among shoppers that has led to aggression and even violence against retail workers.

“We have passed the point where the retailer is in charge to a point in society where the customer is in charge,” Columbia University associate professor and director of retail studies, Mark Cohen told Insider.

“The customer is never wrong”

There is some debate about where the phrase “the customer is always right” comes from.

It is most commonly attributed to Harry Gordon Selfridge, the Wisconsin-born retail tycoon who started out at one of the nation’s first department stores, Marshall Field’s, before building his own department store empire in London.

But before Selfridge, there was César Ritz, who built the first Ritz hotel at the end of the 19th century. According to AE Hotchner’s 2012 article in Vanity Fair, Ritz has created a code of conduct for hotel staff that includes, “If a guest complains about a dish or wine, remove it immediately and replace it without question.”

According to reports, Ritz used a slightly modified, if similarly clear phrase: “Le client n’a jamais tort” or “The customer is never wrong”.

Regardless of the origin of the term, there is no doubt that its ethos has infiltrated the retail world, particularly in the United States. But it wasn’t until after World War II, according to Cohen, that things changed in America. The interstate highway system allowed recently returned soldiers to move from the urban centers to the suburbs, and department stores followed, becoming anchor tenants in newly built shopping malls.

To attract this influx of midsize customers, retailers started making promises, Cohen said.

“It was ‘satisfaction guaranteed,’ ‘returns anytime, forever,’” he said. “There were a variety of promises, all of which were designed to reassure customers that they shouldn’t be afraid to do business with them.”

Fast forward to the modern age and the rise of Amazon: The retail giant has made customer orientation the cornerstone of its business, so one of its guiding principles is called “Customer Obsession”.

“Managers start with the customer and work backwards,” it says. “You are working hard to win and maintain customer trust.”

But Amazon often had to sacrifice its own employees to please customers. And while the obsession with what the customer wants has led to groundbreaking new products like the Kindle e-reader or the possibility of batteries getting to your doorstep in less than 24 hours, it also means that with 200 million Prime- Subscribers and more, that ethos has permeated consumer culture and created a world where many believe that getting what you want, when you want it should be the norm rather than the exception.

Violence against retail workers has increased during the pandemic

The pandemic has shown how much power has been surrendered to American consumers – or more precisely, how much electricity consumers believe they are doing should have.

When the coronavirus struck last March, retail workers across the country were accused of enforcing government or store policies regarding masks. Employees told Insider’s Kate Taylor and Áine Cain at the time that they were afraid to ask shoppers to wear a mask upon entry to ensure their own safety. The workers feared that customers who did not prevail would become violent.

Those fears were justified: In May last year, a security guard was shot dead in a Family Dollar store in Michigan after preventing a customer from entering the store because her daughter was not wearing a mask. A month later, a cashier in an Atlanta grocery store was shot dead after a mask fight, police said.

And just this week, tourists were videotaped assaulting a hostess at New York’s Carmine’s restaurant after asking for proof of her vaccination status. Last month, the city required that guests must be at least partially vaccinated in order to be able to dine indoors.

Reports of attacks on workers or chaotic or aggressive customers have become commonplace over the past 18 months – in fact, in a survey earlier this year, 80% of workers said they have experienced hostile behavior from customers who refused to follow security protocols, and 39% said they would leave their jobs as a result.

Some workers and employees try to raise awareness of the issue. Last month, employees of a McDonald’s in Los Angeles held a rally outside the restaurant to protest what they described as patterns of customer violence. And Gap recently partnered with competitors like H&M, American Eagle and Ralph Lauren to launch a campaign to encourage shoppers to show their support for workers harassed by other customers.

But these measures will not be enough to curb bad behavior by customers who believe they have the right to do what they want in shops and restaurants.

“We have to be careful about how much gasoline we put in the tank and what type of license we give our customers to do business with,” Cohen said. “I think retailers will be a lot more cautious when portraying themselves as wide-open opportunities for customers.”