Take it from the titans, there's only one way to build a sustainable, built to last company and that's by putting the customer at the heart of everything you do. If you don't know the visionaries by name, you'll certainly know them by brand, as what follows are words of wisdom from leaders of dominant empire businesses
"Never Guest is nuisance, or Guest is marginally important, or important when it suits,
but Guest with a capital G. "
Mr. Blackpool
Little Touches® Hospitality
"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. "
"If you work just for money, you'll never make it, but if you love what you're doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours."
"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises.
He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him.
He is not an interruption of our work. He is the purpose of it.
He is not an outside to our business. He is part of it.
We are not doing him a favour by serving him.
He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so."
"It is not the employer who pays the wages.
Employers only handle the money.
It is the customer who pays the wages''
"The man who does more than he is paid for will soon be paid for more than he does.''
"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.''
"Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement''
"Bottom-line obsession comes from turning the pursuit of money into a God and forgetting the real master your business serves: The Customer''
"Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again."
"One customer, well taken care of, could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising''
"Chase the vision, not the money.
The money will end up following you.''
" I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
"Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do."
"Customer service is just a day-in, day-out, ongoing, never-ending, unremitting, persevering, compassionate type of activity."
"I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money's sake."
"Get closer than ever to your customers.
So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves."
" No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world."
"One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others."