The customer is always right.
SHORT STORIES
The customer is always right.
Maybe.
I was watching sumo and found myself thinking about the gyōji.
His traditional kimono is beautiful.
It is also enormous.
If you are sitting in the first rows, those wide sleeves can easily block part of your view.
From the spectator’s perspective, the improvement seems obvious:
Make the kimono smaller.
Better visibility.
Better customer experience.
But would that actually make sumo better?
The gyōji’s clothing is not just clothing. It carries tradition, ceremony, identity — part of what makes sumo feel like sumo.
The spectator may be completely right about the problem:
“I can’t see.”
That doesn’t necessarily make the spectator right about the solution:
“Change the kimono.”
Perhaps listening to the customer means understanding the experience they are describing — not simply implementing the solution they propose.
Customer feedback is information about the problem, not necessarily the answer to it.