When the customer may not be right: a SMU expert’s B2B perspective

By Vince Chong

SMU Office of Research – It was during the Covid period in 2021 when SMU Assistant Professor of Marketing (Education) Lim Leon Gim first thought to turn a popular refrain – that the customer is always right – on its head.

“At that point in time, there were reports linking banks to the plastic pollution crisis, claiming they indirectly contributed by providing financial support to companies involved in the global plastic supply chain,” she told the Office of Research. 

“That was when it dawned on me that, as marketers, we often emphasize the importance of putting customers first. But what if, as in this case, the customer engages in actions that society at large might deem controversial?”

“Should firms still serve or even sell to such customers then?”

Fuelled by the idea, Professor Lim, who joined SMU in 2025, set out to see if she could prove a point that has not been thoroughly explored before, academically. The result was her latest research, which cannot yet be discussed openly as it remains under review at the Journal of Marketing, the globally renowned publication that discusses substantive, real-world issues in the subject. 

Suffice to say, the paper purports to prove that companies that sell to other companies engaging in controversial behaviour can suffer both reputationally and financially. Examples of such ties include business dealings then with the National Rifle Association, a US-based gun rights advocacy that controversially rejected gun control regulations following a high school shooting incident in 2018; or with Chick-Fil-A, a US fast food franchise that rejected same-sex marriage in 2012, a move that did not go down well with a section of the community.

The research is co-authored by Assistant Professor of Marketing Sunkyun Moon, of Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, and Senior Lecturer of Business Tan Yee Heng, of James Cook University in Singapore, and based on more than a decade of data from a few hundred publicly-listed US companies across various industries.

As Professor Lim explains, while the idea was incubated in 2021, collecting the data took up quite some time given its complexity. 

Generally, the paper discusses, among many things, how a company’s behaviour and values may be seen to be controversial and socially unacceptable – such as accidental oil spills or the use of faulty components – and what may happen to another entity that transacts with it. 

The paper was finally submitted to the Journal of Marketing in 2024.

“Love” at first sight

This will not be Professor Lim’s first contribution to the Journal of Marketing, having already published in 2020 the paper Customer satisfaction and its impact on the future costs of selling. 

She has also published in the similarly prestigious International Journal of Research in Marketing, and featured in Harvard Business Review. Further, she has presented at notable international conferences including the ISMS Marketing Science conference, and the EMAC Annual Conference.

Her research interests include marketing accountability, customer satisfaction, and mergers & acquisitions, among many others.

By her own admission, her passion for marketing was akin to “love” at first sight while she was still an undergraduate.

“[T]here was an instant connection – I knew immediately that this is a field I want to dive into,” she says. “I guess my existing interest in Economics during my time in JC [junior college] probably fuelled that instant chemistry.”

Marketing, she continues, plays an “essential and vital role in every business across all industries.” 

“As a marketing faculty member, I may be biased … but no business transaction can occur without involving at least one marketing concept.”

Indeed, while data used in her latest research is US-centric – partly due to data availability – Professor Lim believes the findings apply across the globe.

“While there may be nuances and differences across various global markets, the US market is often considered representative in many areas of business research,” she says.

Going forward, one of Professor Lim’s aims is to cure the “regret” that she has not been able to explore marketing within the context of Asia quite as much. 

“I am always seeking opportunities to collaborate with companies in Singapore to explore how my research can contribute to my home country,” she says.

Back to Research@SMU February 2025 Issue