The Cult of the Customer

"The customer is always right" may be one of the greatest marketing slogans in history. And just as it became a paradigm of customer service, it very likely also bankrupted its inventor. We often hear the first part of the story—the "nice" part—but little is said about the second.

A cult has been built around the concept of the customer, often compromising the ability of organizations to progress. In some cases, customers are also the company's problem. Lately, with the advent of love marks (which are nothing more than brands that have enhanced corporate values empathetic to their audience) and later with the "humanization of brands," certain frayed seams have become visible, ultimately undermining corporate integrity to the ridiculous point of considering that the customer knows more than the business owner.

I must recall that the concept of "enterprise" has roots in both Latin and Greek, which, in essence, evoke the idea of entrepreneurship: "to take on something in order to develop it." This has nothing to do with the "customer."

This cult is clearly manifested when one hears employees say that the company's success is based on the value created for customers. This is a pernicious belief (though not in all cases, obviously) that is often synthesized into the understanding that the value the customer perceives is directly proportional to the employee's performance: "If the customer says it's good, then I must be doing my job well." Another absurd statement frequently heard is, "If the customer is growing, then the company is growing too." Utterly false!

Indeed, understanding the customer—their needs and preferences—is a fundamental source of information for verifying the relevance of a company's offerings. However, it can by no means be the only indicator, nor the most important one. Knowing what the customer thinks is a way to provide feedback to the system, but the way this information is interpreted must be in extremis meticulous.

Companies must remember that their most basic function is to obtain economic profit, which is nothing other than benefiting from what their customers do or plan to do. In other words: to "use" the customer.

Within corporate paradigms, there are four major archetypal groups (in the style of Senge) that categorize attitudes toward the dreaded customer:

1. Companies that seek operational excellence; their discipline is based on employees' dedication to earning customer trust at all costs, doing the impossible to offer a service that receives the least possible criticism. Let's be honest, one of the most difficult things in human nature is the predisposition to applaud the efforts of others... unless we are in a theater (and there, it only happens because we have paid for the ticket and have been entertained).
2. Companies that dazzle with their products; they are capable—and have forced themselves to be capable—of captivating with interesting and innovative products, because they have understood that if the customer consumes them, they are essentially saying that they appreciate their value.
3. Companies that build intimacy with the customer, designing specific and specialized processes to gain their acceptance by offering them unique experiences that no other company can replicate and that, in the long run, generate mutual dependence.
4. Companies that have built brand equity, which do not depend on customers but on their own principles and processes; they transcend the limit of the "relationship" to own a market share. That is, they own the house where employees and customers coexist, for whatever reason. Companies that create brand equity capture not only customers but also their employees. They propose an ecosystem where both coexist and ultimately transact on everything they need. These are companies that get customers and employees to commit to development, and not the other way around.

When companies depend on "what the customer says," they are much more susceptible to market sentiment. If the customer gets what they want, they will surely be grateful (though they will hardly applaud); but if they do not, they can cause even the most structural process to falter. This is partly due to the misinterpretation by some managers and directors of the concept of designing customer-based services. What they should interpret is what the theory—originating more from computer science than any other field—actually meant: designing based on the customer's needs or use cases.

Companies must work on the responsibility of offering a professional perspective on those needs and resolving them in the most accurate way possible. This fundamental pillar is the first step in building trust between the customer and the employee. This synchronization in value creation always begins within the company and is later transferred to the relationship with the customer who became interested in it. The customer came looking for solutions to their problems, not to interfere in corporate processes.

I am a greater believer in companies that work on their purpose coherently, and not so much in the customer who believes they are always right. The customer is a customer because they lack what the company offers; otherwise, they wouldn't be one.

When companies adopt the philosophy of operating based on the "customer being right," it is because they have directors and managers with limited organizational intelligence, who shift their responsibility onto employees instead of establishing a corporate vision of empathy with the customer's needs and growth plan.

There is no magic formula for progress, nor an antidote for certain corporate ailments that arise from a lack of trust within the organization. However, there are channels of communication that can be built and used to improve and innovate in all business processes, which, in the end, must seek results for both parties: the customer and the company. It is not about "defending" a position, but about cooperating.

This article was originally written in Spanish and adapted for English using AI to facilitate global dissemination.