Customer

"Somewhere in the past. organizations were quite simple, and 'doing business' consisted of buying raw material from suppliers, converting into products, and selling it to customers... For the most part owner-entrepreneurs founded such simple business and worked along with members of their families. The family-dominated business still accounts for a large portion of the business start today."

"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."

"Our DNA is as a consumer company - for that individual customer who's voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That's who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it's not up to par, it's our fault, plain and simply."

"Delighted customers are the only advertisement everyone believes."

"Your product is a starting point. A loyal customer is the goal."

"If customers leave without a purchase, you have not failed. But if customers leave without a smile, you have."

"The right measure is not how many customers you've got, but how closely you hold them."

"Customers can be asked about a product's evolution, but not its revolution."

"A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all."

"When you stop talking, you've lost your customer. When you turn your back, you've lost her."

"Industrial design keeps the customer happy, his client in the black and the designer busy."

"The golden rule for every business man is this: 'Put yourself in your customer's place.'"

"Think about it: if you were running a multi-million dollar company, and your database of customer information was stolen, would you want to tell your clients? No. Most [US] companies did not until the laws required them to. It's in the best interest of organisations - when they're attacked and information is stolen - to tell nobody."

"There is one thing we are quite passionate about — and that is serving the customers who have trusted us."

"Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement."

"As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the product."

"Organizations are defined from the inside out: they are described by who reports to whom, by departments and processes and matrices and perks. A business, on the other hand, is defined from the outside in by markets, suppliers, customers, and competitors."

"Pan Am takes good care of you. Marks & Spencer loves you. Securicor cares. I.B.M. says the customer is king. At Amstrad, we only want your money!"

"The toughest thing about the power of trust is that it's very difficult to build and very easy to destroy. The essence of trust building is to emphasize the similarities between you and the customer."

"Users can work with analysts and object designers to formulate and tune system requirements. People from business, analytical and object design disciplines can come together, learn from each other and generate meaningful descriptions of systems that are to be built. Each participant and each project has slightly different concerns and needs. Practical application of use cases can go a long way to improve our ability to deliver just what the customer ordered."

"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."

"Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business."

"I'm constantly amazed that owners and managers of all businesses don't train their people to call the person who pays by credit card by name. It definitely makes the customer feel good and will be a factor in bringing them back to your place of business."