Is the customer always right?

I suppose the case could be made in retail sales that the most profitable mode of doing business is to always allow your customer to be right. But what about in consulting? I'm going to argue that a consultant should never take the customer's answers as "right", just because they came from the customer.

As a consultant, we are being paid to be critical of everything. It is our job to "ferret" out the right course of action for our clients. We have to listen carefully to what they are telling us they want so we can figure out what they really want. Often times they are not one and the same.

The consultant should bring with him a very broad toolset with which to address the clients' issues. Our experience gives us a different perspective from the client, but even more importantly, our abstraction from the political organization allows us to perceive all internal situations more objectively than the client themselves. This is our value proposition. We are actually getting paid to have a different perspective and tell the client where they are wrong and/or validate when they are right.

So, if your consultant ever says "...you're the customer...", it's time to find a new consultant.