Popular quotes about Customer! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
The outside-in discipline requires that you have an explicit customer-based reason for everything you do in the marketplace. Managers need to create what I call "customer pictures," verbal descriptions of customers that highlight the key customer characteristics and make those customers come alive. Although managers never know as much about customers as they want and need to know, the outside-in discipline requires that they construct customer pictures anyway, basing the pictures on whatever hard data they have plus hypotheses and intuition.
Barbara BundWe're not competitor obsessed, we're customer obsessed. We start with the customer and we work backwards.
Jeff BezosOnce you know what you want and what is important for you to achieve, also define the values associated with it. What is important? That is something a lot of entrepreneurs pass by too quickly. For us, the things that were important were, No. 1, customer success. Nothing is more important to us than making sure every customer is successful in our service.
Marc BenioffAll the businesses from the beginning of history have struggled with product development (assuming there is a market, doing the market testing and so on). But now they start with customer development. Get the customer who says, "Yes. I want that. I need it. I wanna use it. I'll pay for it." And then you go back and work with your engineers. It is changing the world!
Brian TracyThe customer is always right' may have become a standard motto in the world of business, but the idea that 'the audience is always right,' has yet to make much of an impression on the world of presentation, even though for the duration of the presentation at least, the audience is the speaker's only customer.
Max AtkinsonCompanies cannot really see beyond their current customer base. They explicitly or implicitly do things to protect their current customers. And the last person to want real change is your customer. This is why most new ideas come from small companies that have nothing to lose.
Nicholas NegroponteResearch is an organized method of trying to find out what you are going to do after you cannot do what you are doing now. It may also be said to be the method of keeping a customer reasonably dissatisfied with what he has. That means constant improvement and change so that the customer will be stimulated to desire the new product enough to buy it to replace the one he has.
Charles KetteringFact is, the work place to a great extent is "where we live." We need star accountants. Boffo saleswomen. Over-the-top creatives in marketing and new product development. And so on. But, since we're effectively talking about "where we live," good sense and good business and "good" engagement throughout the "supply chain," from vendor's vendor to customer's customer, we would benefit mightily-including on the P & L-if we insisted (!) on: "Pleasant." "Caring." "Engaged."
Tom PetersMarketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. It is the art of creating genuine customer value.
Philip Kotler...while everyone's focusing on keeping the boss happy, who's focusing on keeping the customer happy?
James HunterForcing your employees to follow required steps only prevents customer dissatisfaction. If your goal is truly to satisfy, to create advocates, then the step-by-step approach alone cannot get you there. Instead, you must select employees who have the talent to listen and to teach, and then you must focus them toward simple emotional outcomes like partnership and advice....Identify a person's strenths. Define outcomes that play to those strengths. Find a way to count, rate or rank those outcomes. And then let the person run.
Marcus BuckinghamIt is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.
Henry FordOnce you have sold a customer, make sure he is satisfied with your goods. Stay with him until the goods are used up or worn out. Your product may be of such long life that you will never sell him again, but he will sell you and your product to his friends.
William FeatherI am committed to doing customer service for Craigslist for the rest of my life. The exit strategy is death.
Craig NewmarkI don't like to dictate the style to the customer, I believe people give something their own trend.
L'Wren ScottContractors always pursue large profit, the customer - a high-quality end product in due time and at a lower cost. This struggle never ends, but this is natural.
Vladimir PutinI have to be really careful, because I have nothing but love for this entity known as "the customer" in entertainment. I would never, ever, ever put myself above them and say, "They don't get it, but it's funny, believe me." If they're not laughing, I'm doing my job wrong.
Dan HarmonAny seeming deception in a statement is costly, not only in the expense of the advertising but in the detrimental effect produced upon the customer, who believes she has been misled.
John WanamakerAn industry begins with the customer and his or her needs, not with a patent, a raw material, or a selling skill
Theodore LevittYou know, if you make a customer unhappy they won't tell five friends, they'll tell 5,000 friends. So, we are at a point now where we have all of the things we need to build an important and lasting company, and if we don't, it will be shame on us.
Jeff BezosAll business success rests on something labeled a sale, which at least momentarily weds company and customer.
Tom PetersT-Mobile is a young, consumer-driven business, and the average age of my customer outside of Bellevue is 27 or 28. They like outspoken, frank discussion. There was an event where it started to come together, I thought the audience would only care about the MLB guys, but they wanted to know what was on my mind. And I literally snapped about the state of the wireless industry. Over the next 24 hours, there was a lot of stuff that was coming out of my mouth that was meant to stay in Vegas, but it hit a chord. It was an action statement for me that I was going to fix this industry.
John J. LegereI have a feeling-as compelling as a religious conviction-that if industry will constantly pass on to the worker and the customer all the savings of labor-saving machinery and invention, rather than siphon them off into the pools of watered securities, it will by that process keep distribution and production in balance and go as far toward Utopia as our poor human natures will go or be driven.
Samuel B. PettengillA product is something made in a factory; a brand is something that is bought by the customer. A product can be copied by a competitor; a brand is unique. A product can be quickly outdated; a successful brand is timeless.
Stephen KingMost DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customer's use or by creating uncertainty.
Gabe NewellIf you get into a customer service fight with a hooker, even if you're in the right, you're in the wrong.
Chelsea HandlerI'm trying to think of other ones. Oh, yeah, I'd say - somebody would buy something and we'd say, and because you are our hundredth customer today, you get a free paperback.
Steve MartinThe Russians right now require a customer coming in and spending about six months or so in Russia and they have to learn some Russian. They have to learn some critical words so they can, in an emergency, at least have minimum communication with the Russian commander of the Soyuz. They also have to learn systems and I think this just evolved that way. They just thought, what is the minimum set of things we think we can train someone to be more or less competent in our systems? And so that's what these guys go through. So, it's not just like buying a ticket and getting on an airliner.
Leroy ChiaoIn fact, I believe the first companies that make an effort to develop an authentic, transparent, and meaningful social contract with their fans and customers will turn out to be the ones that are the most successful in the future. While brands that refuse to make the effort will lose stature and customer loyalty.
Simon MainwaringThere is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.
Sam WaltonSometimes you're wrong, but if I'm a repeat customer, it means I must have valued the past experiences.
Willem DafoeEvery day were saying, 'How can we keep this customer happy?' How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don't, somebody else will.
Bill GatesNew media is ... an amazing form of direct marketing in that you really get a sense of who your customer is, and you also get to know those people who may not be your customers yet but are aspirational and are hoping to be.
Ivanka TrumpAt the start of any program, asking questions is the most important part of the process. If you get [the customer's] requirements wrong, then you don't have a successful product.
Joe SutterI am concerned about any attrition in customer traffic at Starbucks, but I don't want to use the economy, commodity prices or consumer confidence as an excuse.
Howard SchultzWe asked ourselves what we wanted this company to stand for. We didn't want to just sell shoes. I wasn't even into shoes - but I was passionate about customer service.
Tony Hsieh