The Customer is Always Right

Today in class we were discussing customer service and the relatively new The Customer is Always Right policy that many companies have adopted. For the past three years, I have been working in the front-end of Stew Leonard's which for those of you who do not know, is a huge animated grocery store in Connecticut and New York (there are only three of them). At Stew Leonard's there are two main rules that almost every customer and employee lives by: 1) The customer is always right 2) If the customer is wrong, re-read rule number one. As you can probably see, this store will do anything and everything to please the customers and that is one of the main reasons why Stew Leonard's is so well-known throughout New England.

My experiences working at Stew's have been mostly positive for the most part because the working environment is very encouraging and optimistic. However, as someone mentioned in class today, there comes a point when customers start to abuse their rights. I have had frustrating experiences with customers because they feel they can get away with anything because "the customer is always right." An extreme example of this is when customers think they can steal from the store or lie about product prices because, "hey, they are always right." I think there is a fine line between companies providing excellent customer service to their customers and letting customers do whatever they please. What do you guys think?