Who First Said “The Customer Is Always Right”?

Whether you believe a customer is always right probably depends on which side of the counter you’re on. For shoppers, having a merchant who’s quick to rectify mistakes and listen to concerns is a good thing. For retailers, having consumers abuse the philosophy can be draining. Can a customer always be right if they’re returning a half-eaten sandwich or a wine-stained shirt? That’s debatable.

Whether you love or loathe the expression, you may have wondered where it came from. There are a few explanations, but not all of them are right.

1. The Origin of ‘The Customer Is Always Right’
2. Harry Selfridge

The Origin of ‘The Customer Is Always Right’

The earliest printed mention of “the customer is always right” dates to 1905 and is attributed to Marshall Field, a Chicago department store operator who was celebrated in his day for his great wealth and success. In a profile, The Boston Globe dubbed him a “merchant prince” and speculated he might be worth up to $125 million, or roughly $4 billion today.

Field, who oversaw a block-sized store named Marshall Field and Co., was said to be insistent on employees observing his business practices. “Every employee, from cash boy up, is taught absolute respect for and compliance with the business principles which Mr. Field practices,” the Globe reported. “Broadly speaking, Mr. Field adheres to the theory that ‘the customer is always right.’ He must be a very untrustworthy trader to whom this concession is not granted.”

It's possible the uncredited author of the Globe piece was attributing a proverb to Field that he merely adopted, though no evidence of said proverb is in print prior to the 1905 story.

Nor was Field the only proprietor to subscribe to the idea. Hotel owner César Ritz, who had properties in Paris and London, was a proponent of “le client n’a jamais tort,” or “the customer is never wrong.” This is first attributed to Ritz in 1908, though he certainly could have been referencing it earlier.

But coining a term is not quite the same as popularizing it.

Harry Selfridge

Harry Gordon Selfridge was a disciple of Marshall Field’s, first as a stock boy and then as a department manager—a position he earned by marching up to Field and asking for it. According to a 2016 Chicago Tribune story, Selfridge has been credited with coming up with the phrase as well as the sales tactic of advising shoppers there are “only (blank) number of shopping days until Christmas.”

It's possible, though not provable, Selfridge came up with the customer-is-always-right phrase and Field adopted it. The reverse can also be true. Either way, Selfridge came to be more closely identified with it thanks to his move to London, where he opened Selfridge and Co., or Selfridge’s, in 1909. The courtesy demonstrated by Selfridge’s employees to customers was renowned. Once, Selfridge learned of a woman who believed a coat cost 25 pence rather than 25 pounds: He let her purchase it for the lesser amount.

The motto ran somewhat counter to English retail of the era, which took a more balanced approach and considered the idea of deferring to shoppers silly. Selfridge’s Americanized department store was a success, however, and he prospered. Like everyone else, Londoners enjoyed the pampering.

Selfridge is occasionally credited with the phrase “the customer is always right, in matters of taste,” which changes the meaning considerably. But there’s no readily accessible source citing Selfridge with this altered maxim.

Some find the phrase infantilizing, arguing that customers can quite frequently be wrong and that no store should accommodate unreasonable shoppers. Even Selfridge’s strayed somewhat from the philosophy. In a 1936 newspaper editorial, the store made the following statement: “The customer is not quite always right. There is such a thing, very seldom, as the unreasonable customer … so far as we are concerned, we abide by our old slogan that the customer is always right, and at the same time we relieve ourselves of a possibly impossible position by adding the two words ‘almost always.’”

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