[shanecleveland]

Agreed. Context-dependent is an important distinction for this rule. Coming from a manufacturing-based business of mostly customized products, if all of our customers were always "right," then we would be loosing a losing a lot of money on replacing/refunding products to customers who ordered wrong, used the product incorrectly or are just trying to deceive us (which is rare). A good approach, in my opinion, is to not make the customer think they are wrong and find a way to amicably resolve the situation. My initial response is to gather more information and say "let's see what we can do to make this work for you." We find it is a good opportunity to show how accommodating we are, even when the customer is wrong, which can make a reoccurring customer out of them and educate them for future orders.

I am sure there are some types of business that would rather take the customer-is-right approach, which may be easier and less costly. And there are also probably times when letting certain customers take their business elsewhere may actually be best.