The original phrase "The customer is always right" had an important caveat: "... in matters of taste". Somehow boomers managed to forget the caveat and created a culture of treating customer service workers like personal slaves and demanding to be treated like royalty. I don't know that Millenials think the customer is always right, but I do see that the Zs think anybody can be wrong, especially customers, and I love that about them.
> The original phrase "The customer is always right" had an important caveat: "... in matters of taste".
This is not true. This is fairly recent Internet revisionism with no historical basis, an attempt to "well ackshually" the phrase into something else to make a point.
"The customer is always right" has always meant, "It's better to appease occasional assholes than to risk ever disappointing a customer with a legitimate grievance." Of course, TCIAR is not a natural imperiative. It's an unproven philosophical proposition that may or may not be appropriate at any given time and in any given industry.
To the extent that there is an "original" formulation, it might be Marshal Field's "Give the lady what she wants," which is (probably intentionally) vague on exactly how it should be applied. (And remember that "lady" in Field's time had some classist connotations that are less present today.")
The original phrase "The customer is always right" had an important caveat: "... in matters of taste". Somehow boomers managed to forget the caveat and created a culture of treating customer service workers like personal slaves and demanding to be treated like royalty. I don't know that Millenials think the customer is always right, but I do see that the Zs think anybody can be wrong, especially customers, and I love that about them.