The customer is NOT always right

"The customer is always right."
Throughout history (albeit recent) the above phrase has been bandied about with great fervour by great sections of the service industry. The phrase however implies that customers know exactly what they want... the truth is, if you think of any major advance in consumer goods in the last few centuries, you'll find that the customer did not dictate what the products should be, look like, or how it should work, the customer was wrong. (do give me examples of cases where this is true btw) Listening to a podcast earlier I heard Seth Godin give a perfect example of the wrongness.

If Thomas Edison had listened to his "customers" he would have invented brighter
candles

The point is that until they see the product or hear of the service customers have NO IDEA of what they want, I am willing to bet that no one came up to Mr Edison and requested that he create a light emitting glass bulb.

So sometimes adopting the stance that the customer is right, can lead an idea down the wrong path altogether.
Sometimes you just need to ignore the customer, ignore the masses and be different.