The Customer Is Always Right

Is the Customer Always Right? The Potential for Racial Bias in Customer Evaluations of Employee Performance

With the encouragement of marketing scholars, many companies are tying employee incentives to customer ratings of satisfaction, service quality, or employee performance. One potential drawback to these practices is that customers' evaluations of employees—and, therefore, any associated rewards—may be biased by employee race. This possibility was examined in a restaurant setting. We found that c...

Is the customer always right? End-user services in a networked age

The customer is always right, even when you are justifiably wrong.

Is House, M.D., always right?

Gregory House, M.D., stated in one of his memorable if misanthropic aphorisms, that patients lie. “I don’t ask why patients lie, I just assume they all do” (Moran & Spicer, 2004). This is true. On the other hand, the patient, like the customer, is always right. This is also true. Reconciliation of these aphorisms leads us some way to understanding the art of medicine and the tribulations of pal...

The kidney trade: or, the customer is always wrong.

Much of the opinion scandalized by recent reports of kidneys being sold for transplant is significantly inconsistent. The sale of kidneys is not substantially different from practices espoused, and indeed endorsed, by many of those who condemn the former. Our moral concern, I suggest, needs to focus on the customer's actions rather than the seller's; and on the implications for larger questions...