Is it true that the customer is always right?

For more than a century, smart leaders have promoted the concept that “the customer is always right.” Marshall Field and Harry Selfridge popularized this in the retail space, but it’s spread to being a general business maxim.

Taken literally, though, it’s not true. An amusing example is in recent MetLife ads, where Lucy Van Pelt from “Peanuts” stubbornly declares that the price for everything should be five cents. Clearly the customer can’t be “right” in the sense that she can make your business decisions.

Let’s not get too cynical, though. The customer holds the keys to your revenue stream, and without that,…