Customer

Customer (pronounced kuhs-tuhm-ah)

(1) A habitual patron, regular purchaser, returning client; one who has a custom of buying from a particular business (obsolete in its technical sense).

(2) A patron, a client; one who purchases or receives a product or service from a business or merchant, or intends to do so.

(3) In various slang forms (cool customer, tough customer, ugly customer, customer from hell, dream customer etc), a person, especially one engaging in some sort of interaction with others.

(4) Under the Raj, a native official who exacted customs duties (historic use from British colonial India).

Late 1300s: From the Middle English customere & custommere (one who purchases goods or supplies, one who customarily buys from the same tradesman or guild), from custumer (customs official, toll-gatherer), from the Anglo-French custumer, from the Old French coustumier & costumier (from which modern French gained coutumier (customary, custumal)), from the Medieval Latin noun custumarius (a toll-gatherer, tax-collector), a back-formation from the adjective custumarius (pertaining to custom or customs) from custuma (custom, tax).  The literal translation of the Medieval Latin custumarius was “pertaining to a custom or customs”, a contraction of the Latin consuetudinarius, from consuetudo (habit, usage, practice, tradition).  The generalized sens of “a person with whom one has dealings” emerged in the 1540s while that of “a person to deal with” (then as now usually with some defining adjective: “tough customer”, difficult customer” et al) was in use by the 1580s.  Derived terms are common including customer account, customer base, customer care, customer experience, customer-oriented, customer research, customer resistance, customer service, customer success, customer support, direct-to-customer, customer layer, customer-to-customer, ugly customer, tough customer, difficult customer et al.  Customer is a noun; the noun plural is customers.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) used the word sometimes to mean “prostitute” and in his work was the clear implication that a buyer was as guilty as the seller, the law both unjust a hypocritical, something which in the twentieth century would be rectified in Swedish legislation.

Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well (circa 1602), Act 5, scene 3

LAFEW:  This woman’s an easy glove, my lord; she goes off and on at pleasure.

KING: This ring was mine. I gave it his first wife.

DIANA: It might be yours or hers for aught I know.

KING (to attendants) Take her away. I do not like her now.  To prison with her, and away with him. Unless thou tell’st me where thou hadst this ring, Thou diest within this hour.

DIANA: I’ll never tell you.

KING: Take her away.

DIANA: I’ll put in bail, my liege.

KING: I think thee now some common customer.

DIANA (to Bertram): By Jove, if ever I knew man, ’twas you.

In Sweden, the law was amended in a way of which Shakespeare might have approved, Chapter 6, Section 11 of the Swedish Penal Code making it an offence to pay for sex, the act of “purchasing sexual services” criminalized, the aim being to reduce the demand for prostitution.  The law provides for fines or a maximum term of imprisonment for one year, depending on the circumstances of the case.  So selling sexual services is not unlawful in Sweden but being a customer is, an inversion of the model for centuries applied in the West.  Individuals who engage in prostitution are not criminalized under Swedish law, which is intended to protect sex workers from legal penalties while targeting the customers, now defined as those who “exploit them”.  The Swedish model aims to reduce prostitution by focusing on the demand side and providing support for those who wish to exit prostitution and as a statement of public policy, the law reform reflected the government’s view prostitution was a form of gender inequality and exploitation.  The effectiveness of the measure has over the years been debated and the customer-focused model of enforcement has not widely been emulated.

The customer is always right

Reliable return customer: Lindsay Lohan in the Chanel Shop, New York City, May 2013.

The much quoted phrase (which in some areas of commerce is treated as a proverb): “the customer is always right” has its origins in retail commerce and is used to encapsulate the value: “service staff should give high priority to customer satisfaction”.  It is of course not always literally true, the point being that even when patently wrong about something, it is the customer who is paying for stuff so they should always be treated as if they are right.  Money being the planet’s true lingua franca, variations exist in many languages, the best known of which is the French le client n'a jamais tort (the customer is never wrong), the slogan of Swiss hotelier César Ritz (1850-1918) whose name lived on in the Hôtel Ritz in Paris, the Ritz and Carlton Hotels in London and the Ritz-Carlton properties dotted around the world.  While not always helpful for staff on the shop floor, it’s an indispensible tool for those basing product manufacturing or distribution decisions on aggregate demand.  To these bean counters, what is means is that if there is great demand for red widgets and very little for yellow widgets, the solution is probably not to commission an advertising campaign for yellow widgets but to increase production of the red, while reducing or even ceasing runs of the yellow.  The customer is “right” in what they want, not in the sense of “right & wrong” but in the sense of their demand being the way to work out what is the “right” thing to produce because it will sell.

Available at Gullwing Motor Cars: Your choice at US$129,500 apiece.

The notion of “the customer is always right” manifests in the market for pre-modern Ferraris (a pre-1974 introduction the accepted cut-off).  While there nothing unusual about differential demand in just about any market sector, dramatically is it illustrated among pre-modern Ferraris with some models commanding prices in multiples of others which may be rarer, faster, more credentialed or have a notionally more inviting specification.  That can happen when two different models are of much the same age and in similar condition but a recent listing by New York-based Gullwing Motor Cars juxtaposed two listings which left no doubt where demand exists.  The two were both from 1972: a 365 GTC/4 and a Dino 246 GT.

Some reconditioning required: 1972 Ferrari 356 GTC/4

The 365 GTC/4 was produced for two years between 1971-1972 during which 505 were built.  Although now regarded as a classic of the era, the 365 GTC/4 lives still in the shadow of the illustrious 365 GTB/4 with which, mechanically, it shares much.  The GTB/4 picked up the nickname “Daytona”, an opportunistic association given 1-2-3 finish in the 1967 24 Hours of Daytona involved three entirely different models while the GTC/4 enjoyed only the less complementary recognition of being labeled by some il gobbone (the hunchback) or quello alla banana (the banana one).  It was an unfair slight and under the anyway elegant skin, the GTB/4 & GTC/4 shared much, the engine of the latter differing mainly in lacking the dry-sump lubrication and the use of six twin-choke side-draft Weber carburetors rather than the downdrafts, this permitting a lower bonnet (hood) line.  Revisions to the cylinder heads allowed the V12 to be tuned to deliver torque across a broad rev-range rather than the focus on top-end power which was one of the things which made the GTB/4 so intoxicating.

Criticizing the GTC/4 because it doesn’t quite have the visceral appeal of the GTB/4 seems rather like casually dismissing the model who managed only to be runner-up to Miss Universe.  The two cars anyway, despite sharing a platform, were intended for different purposes, the GTB/4 an outright high performance road car which could, with relatively few modifications, be competitive in racing whereas the GTC/4 was a grand tourer, even offering occasional rear seating for two (short) people.  One footnote in the history of the marque is the GTC/4 was the last Ferrari offered with the lovely Borrani triple-laced wire wheels; some GTB/4s had them fitted by the factory and a few more were added by dealers but the factory advised that with increasing weight, tyres with much superior grip and higher speeds, they were no longer strong enough in extreme conditions and the cast aluminum units should be used if the car was to be run in environments without speed restrictions such as race tracks or certain de-restricted public roads (then seen mostly in West Germany (FRG), Montana & Nevada in the US and Australia's Northern Territory & outback New South Wales (NSW)).  The still stunning GTB/4 was the evolutionary apex of its species; it can't be improved upon but the GTC/4 is no ugly sister and when contemplating quello alla banana, one might reflect on the sexiness of the fruit.

Gullwing’s offering was described as “a highly original unrestored example in Marrone Colorado (Metallic Brown) with a tan leather interior, factory air conditioning, and power windows; showing 48K miles (77K kilometres) on the odometer.  It has been sitting off the road for several years and is not currently running.”  It was certainly highly original and seemed complete but properly should be regarded as a “project” because of the uncertainty about the extent (and thus the cost) of the recommissioning.  At an asking price of US$129,500, it would represent good value only if it was mechanically sound and no unpleasant surprises were found under the body’s lovely curves although, given the market for 365 GTC/4s in good condition, it was a project best taken on by a specialist.

Some assembly required: 1972 Dino 246 GT by Ferrari

The days are gone when the Dino 246 was dismissed as “more of a Fiat than a Ferrari” and even if the factory never put their badge on the things (although plenty subsequently have added one), they are now an accepted part of the range.  The 246 replaced the visually almost similar but slightly smaller and even more jewel-like Dino 206, 152 of which (with an all-aluminium 2.0 litre (122 cubic inch) V6 rather than the V12s which had for some years been de rigueur in Ferrari’s road cars) were built between 1967-1969, all with berlinetta (coupé) bodywork.  Mass-produced by comparison, there were 3569 Dino 246s produced between 1969-1974, split between 2,295 246 GTs (coupés) & 1,274 246 GTSs (spyders (targa)).  Fitted with an iron-block 2.4 litre (147 cubic inch) V6, the Dinos were designed deliberately to be cheaper to produce and thus enjoy a wider market appeal, the target those who bought the more expensive Porsche 911s, a car the Dino (mostly) out-performed.  In recent decades, the Dino 246 has been a stellar performer in the collector market, selling typically for three times the price of something like a 365 GTC/4; people drawn to the seductive lines rather than the significantly better fuel consumption.

Most coveted of the 246s are those describe with the rhyming colloquialism “chairs and flares” (C&F to the Ferrari cognoscenti), a reference to a pair of (separately available) options available on later production Dino 246s.  The options were (1) seats with inserts (sometimes in a contrasting color) in the style used on the Daytona & (2) wider Campagnolo Elektron wheels (which the factory only ever referred to by size) which necessitated flared wheel-arches.  At a combined US$795.00 (in 1974), the C&F combination has proved a good investment, now adding significantly to the price of the anyway highly collectable Dino.  Although it's hard to estimate the added value because so many other factors influence calculation, all else being equal, the premium is usually between US$100-200,000 but these things are always relative; in 1974 the C&F option added 5.2% to a Dino GTS's list price and was just under a third the cost of a new small car such as the Chevrolet Vega.  It was a C&F Dino 246 GTS which in 1978 was found buried in a Los Angeles where it had sat for some four years after being secreted away in what turned out to be an unplanned twist to a piece of insurance fraud.  In remarkably good condition (something attributed to its incarceration being during one of California’s many long droughts), it was fully restored.

Not in such good condition is the post-incineration Dino 246 GT (not a C&F) being offered by Gullwing Motor Cars, the asking price the same US$129,500 as for the 365 GTC/4.  Also built in 1972, Gullwing actually describe this one as “a project”, probably one of history’s less necessary announcements.  The company couldn’t resist running the title “Too Hot to Handle” and described the remains as “…an original car that has been completely burnt.  Originally born in Marrone Colorado with beige leather.  It comes with its clear matching title and this car clearly needs complete restoration, but the good news is that it's certainly the cheapest one you will ever find.  The Dino market is hot and shows no signs of cooling. An exciting opportunity to own an iconic 246GT Dino. This deal is on fire!”  It’s still (sort of) metal and boasts the prized “matching numbers” (ie the body, engine & gearbox are all stamped with the serial numbers which match the factory records) so there’s that but whether, even at the stratospheric prices Dinos often achieve, the economics of a restoration (that may be the wrong word) can be rationalized would need to be calculated by experts.  As with the 365 GTC/4, Gullwing may be amenable to offers but rather that the customer always being right, this one needs "the right customer".

Aggregate demand: The highly regarded auction site Bring-a-Trailer (BAT, their origin being a clearing house for “projects” although most were less challenging than Gullwing’s Dino) publishes auction results (including “reserve not met” no-sales) and the outcomes demonstrate how much the market lusts for Dinos.  BAT also has a lively comments section for each auction and more than once a thread had evolved to discuss the incongruity of the prices achieved by Dinos compared with the rarer Boxer 365 & 512 BB (1973-1984) which was when new much more expensive, much faster and, of course, a genuine twelve cylinder Ferrari.  In such markets however, objective breakdowns of specifications and specific performance are not what decide outcomes: The customer is always right.