The Most Misunderstood Marketing Phrase

There's a popular saying in marketing that I guarantee you've heard before.

But I had completely misunderstood it until recently.

Here's what it really means.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

This is the Marketing Director Daily, and I'm Tim Parkin. The customer is always right. Have you heard that before? Because I've heard it a thousand times. The customer is always right. And I don't know about you, but I've often had a challenge with this. That when I first started a business, I thought the customer is always right. That must be true. And so whatever the customer says goes. But then as you interact with more and more customers, you realize that the customer can't always be right. Sometimes customers want unrealistic things. They're unreasonable. They're demanding, or perhaps they're just wrong. So the customer can't always be right. But yet this saying has been around forever. I'm sure you've heard it before. And so what does it really mean? And is it true, or should we just forget about it altogether? That's what I want to unpack for you here. Because not too long ago I had an epiphany and I realized I was thinking about this the wrong way. And I wonder if I was thinking about it the wrong way. Maybe you are as well. So I want to share with you my insights, my discovery about this expression, and why I firmly believe it's true, but not in the way that you think. So let's talk about it. What does it mean that the customer is always right? Old me in the past used to think that the customer is always right meant that the customer always has the right answer, that whatever they say is true. Whatever they say goes. And if they ask for a discount, you should give it to them. If they return something and say it didn't work, even if it did, you should believe them. That's what I used to think it meant. And this is where I really struggled because in the real world, those rules don't apply. As I mentioned, customers are often unreasonable, ignorant, or perhaps just flat out wrong. Unfortunately, there are some bad apples, and some people try to take advantage of you. And so the customer can't always be right. And for years I struggle with this dilemma that on the one hand, I do believe that good business is trusting the customer and listening to them and doing what they say. But on the other hand, that's not practical. That's not realistic. That's not necessarily always profitable. So how do you circle this square? But that's when I realized I had it backwards. I was thinking about it wrong. And the customer is always right. But it doesn't mean that what the customer says goes. And it doesn't mean that you should listen to what the customer says. What it means is that perception is reality. You and I are the same way, just like your customers. That's what you perceive is your reality, and your reality is your truth. And so if you perceive something or believe something, then it's true to you. And the same is true of your customers. And so, however, the customer perceives something, that is their worldview, that is their reality, that's their truth. And so if the customer looks at your website and is confused, then your website is confusing. It doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter if the CEO thinks it's the best thing ever made, the customer says it's confusing. That's what the customer is always right really means. And we have a decision to make as marketers that often internally, I see this happen all the time, we decide for the customer what's best for them. We decide for the customer what they really want, what they need, and what they mean. And we have this completely backwards that we design our websites and our ads and our messaging, everything based on what we think the customer wants or needs. Instead of going to the customer and seeing it from their perspective. There's a lot of ways to do this, which is the good news. And one of them is to mystery shop. It's best if you are the customer, you can really see things pretty clearly. But another is usability testing or just testing in general. To go and ask customers, how do you perceive this? How does it make you feel? What do you think about this? What words would you use? This is key. That's how you can understand what the customer really thinks, how they really perceive things and see the world, and how they see your marketing and your messaging and your business as a whole. And once you see it from their perspective, you need to accept it, that their perception is reality and it should be your reality as well. This has a lot of implications for you as a marketer. One, the really good news is that you don't have to know anything about marketing. It's really easy when you don't have to have the answers. When you can go to customers and ask them and then just do what they say. If they tell you the website's confusing, fix it. If they tell you it needs to change, change it. If they tell you it's good, don't touch it. It's really easy when you rely on customers, when you rely on users or prospects to tell you what you should do. Clearly, you have to have some thoughts, some innovations, but on the whole, we need to leverage and rely on our users more because they're the only person that matters. Not the CEO's opinion of what the website should be. And don't get me started on your homepage because I know it was built by a committee, that other people spoke in and said we should have this thing, and we should have a sliding carousel, we should have this message on there. None of that matters. Their opinions don't matter. It's easy for me to say that, but it's something that we all need to say to our leadership that your opinion doesn't matter on this matter, and my opinion doesn't matter either. The only person's opinion who matters is the customer. And their perception is their reality, and it must be ours. And to do effective marketing, we need to meet the customer where they're at and understand and see it from their eyes. So, one, you don't have to have the answers because you can just go to the customer and ask them and listen. And you have to read between the lines sometimes here. You know, Henry Ford said if I were to ask people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. And so you can't literally ask people what they want and just give them what they say. You need to do some translation here. You need to read between the lines. But it's really key that you go to the customer and ask them to understand what they really want. In the Henry Ford example, clearly they wanted more speed. And a car solved that, but they wanted faster. They wanted speed. So step one, you don't have to have the answers because you can go and ask the customers what they want. But number two is really cool as well. One of my favorite parts about this is that you don't have to get it right. That we can keep asking, and more importantly, we can keep testing. That you can get some feedback, get some insight from your customers, from your prospects, and you can make a change, launch a campaign, get some data and see did it work better? Was it worse? Did it flop? Did it succeed? What happened? Get the data. You don't have to get it right. You just have to keep moving forward and keep testing and keep trying new things. And eventually you'll get it right. Eventually, it will be more successful than it's ever been before. So, number one, go and ask people. And number two, keep testing, keep trying. This is really good news if you're a marketer. All of this is that the customer is right, and we need to be celebrating this. I'm thankful that the customer is right because it makes my job a lot easier. That in any conversation, I can always say, who's the customer? And what do they want? What do they think? How do they see this? And it provides a grounding, a foundation for everything. And that's number three is if internally the culture of your organization can be focused on the customer, and everyone can have the perspective that the single most important person at the company is the person not at the company at all. It's the customer. That our whole organization is designed to serve the customer. Peter Drucker famously said the goal of marketing is to make selling superfluous, that people should show up ready to buy. That's how good your marketing should be. That's how good your marketing can be if you're willing to focus on the customer. If you're brave enough to go and talk to customers and to hear from their perspective, to see from their perspective, and then to test and try and change things to make it more aligned to their perspective. Marketing is actually really easy when you focus on the customer. So go and talk to customers and see things from their eyes. Then run a bunch of tests to see how it works and to get the data. And continue to champion internally, making the customer the most valuable, most important person at your company, and the only person whose opinion actually matters. If you do those three things, your marketing will make selling superfluous.