Motto: The customer is always right (antedating 1905 October 11 attrib Marshall Field)

[Garson O'Toole]

The customer is always right.

Who crafted this saying? The contenders are: César Ritz, Marshall
Field, H. Gordon Selfridge, John Wanamaker, Anonymous, and Unknowable.

The following references were consulted because they contained the
saying or a close variant: Oxford English Dictionary (August 2010),
Yale Book of Quotations, Barry Popik's website, The Oxford Dictionary
of Proverbs, Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Oxford Dictionary
of Quotations, The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations, Wikipedia,
Wikiquote.

For several years the earliest relevant cite was for a French variant
credited to César Ritz in 1908:

Le client n'a jamais tort.
The customer is never wrong.

This instance led some to believe that the proverb originated in the
French language.

However, the team at the OED found a great earlier instance. The OED
(August 2010) under the headword "right" presents a 1906 cite for "the
customer is always right":

1906 M. Tarbell Teacher's Guide to Internat. Sunday-school Lessons
1907 x. 133   His business policy is phrased thus, ‘the customer is
always right;’ in other words, he preferred to be imposed on
occasionally,‥rather than contend the question.

Here is a longer excerpt:

A merchant who is many times a millionaire, recently said that he owed
his prosperity to this spirit of conciliation shown by Isaac, His
business policy is phrased thus, "the customer is always right"; in
other words, he preferred to be imposed upon occasionally, to accept
every complaint a customer might make at its face value, and adjust
things to suit that customer, rather than contend the question.

End excerpt

The author Martha Tarbell does not identify the merchant, but below is
a 1905 citation that I found that names Marshall Field.

Cite: 1905 September 24, Boston Daily Globe, He Shares the Public
Burden: Marshall Field of Chicago Pays $750,000 Taxes a Year, Page 41,
Boston, Massachusetts. (ProQuest)

Every employe from cash boy up is taught absolute respect for and
compliance with the business principles which Mr Field practices.
Broadly speaking, Mr Field adheres to the theory that "the customer is
always right." He must be a very untrustworthy trader to whom this
concession is not granted.

(The spelling "employe" is from the newspaper text.)

Here is another cite in 1905 that uses wording similar to Tarbell's
1906 passage. The merchant is unnamed.

Cite: 1905 November 11, Corbett's Herald, Topics of the Times, Page 4,
Providence, Rhode Island. (Google News archive)

One of our most successful merchants, a man who is many times a
millionaire, recently summed up his business policy in the phrase,
"The customer is always right." The merchant takes every complaint at
its face value and tries to satisfy the complainant, believing it
better to be imposed upon occasionally than to gain the reputation of
being mean or disputatious.

Skipping to 1910, here is the most humorous cite I encountered while searching.

Cite: 1910 March 16, Printers' Ink, Carrying Out Marshall Field's
Precept, Page 43, Decker Communications, Inc., New York. (HathiTrust)

Carrying Out Marshall Field's Precept, "The Customer is Always Right."

Two young men who are employed in a big department store were dining
together. "Well, how many times did you lose your job to-day?" asked
one.

"I had an easy time of it to-day," replied the other. "I was only
fired six times."

A friend seated at the table with them expressed surprise at this
remarkable conversation.

"Well, you see it's this way," said the one who had first spoken. "Tom
happens to be the stores professional fired man. There isn't an hour
goes by but some disgruntled customer comes in with a complaint about
some error and demands that the person who is responsible for the
error be reprimanded. That's where Tom comes in. He is sent for and
told that the mistake is due to his carelessness, and that his
services are no longer required. Tom goes away, apparently
crestfallen, and awaits the next summons." -- N. Y. Sun.

There are some false hits in Google Books before 1905 so please be
careful if you search for earlier examples (and I hope that some of
you will search). Also, the OCR on the Boston Globe article is poor,
hence a search for "customer is always right" with the ProQuest search
engine does not yield a match for the article. A search for the title
"He shares the public burden" will match the article.

There is another French version with an instance in 1917 listed by
Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs:
Le patron n'a jamais tort.

Garson

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org