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[ is often said that “the
customer is always right.” The
expression is perhaps as old as
commerce itself: we've all heard
it said and we have all used it

at one point or another when
trying to resolve a grievance or
complaint with a merchant.

I didn’t coin the expression,
but my understanding is
that it was coined as a means
to highlight the benefits to
businesses in providing a high-
quality customer experience.
After all, a happy customer is a
repeat customer.

The art of doing business,
as any student of the subject
would attest, is a complex
mixture of providing quality
products or services at an
attractive price-point, while
offering the best experience to
the clientele. A failure on the
former would simply result in
a customer looking elsewhere,
whereas any misgivings on the
latter could potentially produce
blowback that could cripple a
commercial venture.

Ask anyone who has owned
a small business in the last 25
years: they likely won't joke
about that double-edged sword
known as “word-of-mouth.”
The dynamic of a business
transaction—that of a buyer
and a seller—has always tended
to favour the buyer. If a buyer
didn’t like their experience,
there are consumer relations
boards to call, a letter to the
Better Business Bureau to be
written, and spreading that
horror story to 10 friends.
Business owners could do little
about managing a disgruntled
customer, aside from trying to
resolve the matter privately.

Just as business owners
bowed their heads and found

solace in the notion that it
couldn't get anymore one-sided,
the Internet came along.

The digital space is
increasing its reach into our
lives, and it is only accelerating
exponentially as more and
more people become literate
in developing smartphone
applications and other web-
based services. Its importance
in our lives compels businesses
to adapt, asserting their
presence online to increase
their reach. The benefits to
businesses going online are
limitless, but in the early days
of the Internet, owners of
small and medium enterprises
(SMEs for short) saw the digital
space as simply another avenue
for consumers to air their
horrible customer experiences.
It wouldn't even matter if the
experience was factual. The
attitude was, if a customer
detailed their story about a
product or service they didn't
like via a blog or forum post,
the business was at fault. When
you consider the anonymity
granted to a user of the Internet
(especially in its early days),
there was no recourse for a
business to rectify the situation.
Once again, “the customer is
always right”— even if they lie.

There was some semblance
of change when eBay came on
the scene with its proprietary
feedback system. It naturally
allowed buyers to rate their
seller either positively or
negatively and allowed them to
leave a detailed account of their
experience. It was, however,
revolutionary when it allowed
sellers on the site to rate their
buyers.

Surprised? Yes, eBay
allowed its sellers to rate those