Notable quotes about customers: Difference between revisions

| text = There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.<ref>{{cite book |last=Drucker |first=Peter F. |title=The Practice of Management |publisher=Harper & Row |orig-date=1954 |date=2006 |isbn=978-0060878979 |pages=37}}</ref>

| text = The single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that results exist only on the outside. The result of a business is a satisfied customer. The result of a hospital is a healed patient. The result of a school is a student who has learned something and puts it to work ten years later. Inside an enterprise, there are only costs.<ref>{{cite book |last=Drucker |first=Peter F. |title=Management |publisher=Harper Business |date=2008 |isbn=978-0061252662 |pages=16 |chapter=1}}</ref>

| text = There 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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Soderquist |first=Don |title=The Wal-Mart Way |publisher=Thomas Nelson |date=2005 |isbn=978-0785261193 |pages=55 |chapter=The Customer is the Boss}}</ref>

| text = A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.<ref>{{cite book |last=LeBoeuf |first=Michael |title=How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |date=1987 |isbn=978-0399132612 |pages=17}}</ref>

| text = The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.<ref>{{cite book |last=Fischer |first=Louis |title=The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas |publisher=Vintage Books |orig-date=1962 |date=2002 |isbn=9780375714665 |pages=35}}</ref>

| text = We needed to build deeper empathy for our customers and their unarticulated and unmet needs.<ref>{{cite book |last=Nadella |first=Satya |title=Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone |publisher=HarperCollins |date=2017 |isbn=978-0062652508 |pages=141}}</ref>

| text = Don't find customers for your products, find products for your customers.<ref>{{cite book |last=Godin |first=Seth |title=This is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn To See |publisher=Portfolio |date=2018 |isbn=978-0525540830 |pages=14 |chapter=Not for everyone}}</ref>

| text = We see a lot of feature-driven product design in which the cost of features is not properly accounted. Features can have a negative value to customers because they make the products more difficult to understand and use. We are finding that people like products that just work. It turns out that designs that just work are much harder to produce that designs that assemble long lists of features.<ref>{{cite book |last=Crockford |first=Douglas |title=JavaScript: The Good Parts |publisher=O'Reilly Media, Inc. |date=2008 |isbn=978-0596517748 |pages=111 |chapter=Appendix C: The Bad Parts}}</ref>

| text = As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the product.<ref>{{cite book |last=Raskin |first=Jef |title=The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems |publisher=Addison-Wesley Professional |date=2000 |isbn=978-0201379372 |pages=5}}</ref>

| text = If we can keep our competitors focused on us while we stay focused on the customer, ultimately we'll turn out all right.<ref>{{cite book |last=Brandt |first=Richard L. |title=One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com |publisher=Portfolio |date=2011 |isbn=978-1591843757 |page=89}}</ref>

| text = Customer service shouldn't just be a department, it should be the entire company.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hsieh |first=Tony |title=Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose |publisher=Business Plus |date=2010 |isbn=978-0446563048 |pages=152}}</ref>

| text = The customer is sometimes wrong. We don't carry those sorts of customers. We write to them and say "Fly somebody else."<ref>{{cite book |last=Freiberg |first=Kevin |title=Nuts! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success |publisher=Bard Press |date=1996 |isbn=978-1885167187 |pages=269–270}}</ref>

| text = Sham Harga had run a successful eatery for many years by always smiling, never extending credit, and realizing that most of his customers wanted meals properly balanced between the four food groups: sugar, starch, grease, and burnt crunchy bits.<ref>{{cite book |last=Pratchett |first=Terry |title=Men at Arms |publisher=Victor Gollancz Ltd |date=1993 |isbn=978-0575055032 |pages=34}}</ref>

| text = The golden rule for every business man is this: 'Put yourself in your customer's place.'<ref>{{cite book |last=Marden |first=Orison Swett |title=The Optimistic Life |publisher=Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. |date=1907 |page=234}}</ref>

| text = Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, 'Make me feel important.' Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ash |first=Mary Kay |title=The Mary Kay Way: Timeless Principles from America's Greatest Woman Entrepreneur |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |date=2008 |isbn=978-0470379950 |chapter=Chapter 1: Make Me Feel Important}}</ref>

| text = It also involves romancing the customer and romancing all the senses in the store experience.<ref>{{cite book |last=Schultz |first=Howard |title=Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time |publisher=Hyperion |date=1997 |isbn=978-0786883561 |pages=250}}</ref>

| text = Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.<ref>{{cite book |last=Disney Institute |first= |title=Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service |publisher=Disney Editions |date=2001 |isbn=978-0786854752 |pages=32}}</ref>

| text = They may forget what you said — but they will never forget how you made them feel.<ref>{{cite book |last=Evans |first=Richard L. |title=Richard L. Evans' Quote Book |publisher=Publishers Press |date=1971 |pages=244}}</ref>

| text = The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but to exceed them — preferably in unexpected and helpful ways.<ref>{{cite book |last=Branson |first=Richard |title=Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur |publisher=Virgin Books |date=2008 |isbn=978-0753515037 |pages=227}}</ref>

| text = We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.<ref>{{cite book |last=Durant |first=Will |title=The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers |publisher=Simon & Schuster |orig-date=1926 |date=1991 |isbn=9780671739164 |pages=87 |chapter=Aristotle and Greek Science}}</ref>

| text = Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for.<ref>{{cite book |last=Drucker |first=Peter F. |title=Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles |publisher=Harper & Row |orig-date=1985 |date=2006 |isbn=9780060913601 |pages=228 |chapter=The Emergence of the Entrepreneurial Economy}}</ref>

| text = The best way to hold customers is to constantly figure out how to give them more for less.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kotler |first=Philip |title=Marketing Insights from A to Z: 80 Concepts Every Manager Needs to Know |publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |date=2003 |isbn=978-0471268673 |pages=43 |chapter=Customers}}</ref>

| text = Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cuban |first=Mark |title=How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It |publisher=Diversion Books |date=2011 |isbn=978-1626810914 |pages=24 |chapter=The Sport of Business}}</ref>

| text = Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gates |first=Bill |title=Business @ the Speed of Thought: Using a Digital Nervous System |publisher=Warner Books |date=1999 |isbn=978-0446525688 |pages=5}}</ref>

| text = It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kilpatrick |first=Andrew |title=Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett |publisher=AKPE |date=2007 |isbn=978-1578644155 |page=1023}}</ref>

| text = Delighted customers are the only advertisement everyone believes.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kaufman |first=Ron |title=Lift Me Up! Service with a Smile: 101 Bright Ideas to Make Your Customers Smile |publisher=UP! Your Service |date=2005 |isbn=978-9810527655 |pages=84}}</ref>

| text = The best advertising is done by satisfied customers.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kotler |first=Philip |title=Marketing Management: Millennium Edition |publisher=Prentice Hall |date=2000 |isbn=978-0130122155}}</ref>