50+ quotes from leaders on customer centricity and customer obsessed leadership

Customer Obsessed Culture
Quotes
Quotes from Leaders driving a
Customer Centric Approach

© Copyright MarketCulture Strategies 2019
THE 8 CUSTOMER OBSESSED CULTURE
DISCIPLINES

CUSTOMER CENTRICITY
“A customer culture is
as fundamental to your
business as breathing
is to living. It is the life
force of your business.”
Dr Linden R. Brown,
Cofounder and Chairman, MarketCulture Strategies

CUSTOMER CENTRICITY
“What’s best for your
customer is best for
your business.”
Chris Brown,
Cofounder and CEO, MarketCulture Strategies

John Stanhope,
Former CFO of Telstra. Chairman of Australia Post
“When the customer
makes you or your
business the centre
of what they do in
your solution area,
you have achieved
customer centricity."
CUSTOMER CENTRIC LEADERSHIP

CUSTOMER CENTRICITY
"I would define Amazon
by our big ideas, which
are customer centricity,
putting the customer at
the center of everything
we do.”
Jeff Bezos,
Founder and CEO, Amazon

CUSTOMER CENTRICITY
“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.”
Sam Walton,
Founder and Former CEO, Walmart

CUSTOMER CENTRICITY
“There is never a
good sale for Neiman
Marcus unless it’s a
good buy for the
customer.”
Stanley Marcus,
CEO, Neiman Marcus

CUSTOMER LOYALTY
“Our customers are
loyal to us right up
until the second
somebody offers them
a better service, and I
love that. it’s super-
motivating for us.”
Jeff Bezos,

WHY CULTURE MATTERS
Dr. Peter F. Drucker,
The World’s Most Prolific Management Writer
“Culture eats
strategy for
breakfast”

WHY CULTURE MATTERS
Louis V. Gerstner Jr.
Former Chairman and CEO, IBM
“I came to see
in my time at
IBM, that
culture isn’t just
one aspect of
the game - it is
the game.”

CUSTOMER INSIGHT
“Our version of a perfect
customer experience is one
in which our customer
doesn't want to talk to us.
Every time a customer
contacts us, we see it as a
defect. I've been saying for
many, many years, people
should talk to their friends,
not their merchants.”
Jeff Bezos,

CUSTOMER INSIGHT
“Consumer
feedback
continues to be
our MOST
important
business driver”
Howard Shultz,
Chairman and CEO, Starbucks

CUSTOMER INSIGHT
“You’ve gotta start with
the customer
experience and work
backwards to the
technology.”
Steve Jobs,
Founder and Former CEO, Apple

CUSTOMER INSIGHT
“Customer
feedback is the
sling shot that will
propel your
business forward”
Reid Hoffman,
Founder of LinkedIn

CUSTOMER INSIGHT
“Consumer data will be
the biggest
differentiator in the next
2 to 3 years.
Whoever unlocks the
reams of data and uses
it strategically will win.”
Angela Ahrendts,
Former CEO, Burberry

CUSTOMER INSIGHT
“It’s very important to
have a FEEDBACK
LOOP, where you’re
constantly thinking
about what you’ve
done and how you
could be doing better.”
Elon Musk,
Founder PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors

A.G. Lafley,
Former CEO, Procter & Gamble
“I am a broken
record when
it comes to saying,
‘We have
to focus on the
consumer.’...
I don’t think the
answers are just
in the numbers.
You have to get
out and look.”
CUSTOMER INSIGHT

CUSTOMER INSIGHT
“You want to be extra
rigorous about making
the best possible thing
you can. Find
everything that’s wrong
with it and fix it. Seek
negative feedback.”
Elon Musk,

“Some people say,
‘Give the customers
what they want.’ But
that’s not my
approach.
Our job is to figure out
what they’re going to
want before they do.”
CUSTOMER FORESIGHT
Steve Jobs,

CUSTOMER FORESIGHT
Henry Ford,
Founder, Ford Motor Company
”If I had asked my
customers what the
wanted, they would
have said a faster
horse”

CUSTOMER FORESIGHT
Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO
Amazon
“Our job, is to invent
new options that
nobody's ever thought of
before and see if
customers like them.”

CUSTOMER FORESIGHT
"Get closer than ever to
your customers. So
close that you tell them
what they need well
before they realize it
themselves.”
Steve Jobs,

CUSTOMER FORESIGHT
“Any company that
wants to put customers
first….has to be willing
to think long term.”
Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon
And the 10,000 Year Clock Project

CUSTOMER FORESIGHT
Mark Benioff,
Founder and CEO, Salesforce.com
“You need to get to
the future, ahead of
your customers, and
be ready to greet
them when they
arrive.”

CUSTOMER FORESIGHT
Philip Kotler,
Professor Kellogg School of Management
“Good companies will
meet needs;
Great companies will
create markets”

CUSTOMER INSIGHT AND
FORESIGHT
“The most important
single thing is to
obsessively focus on
the customer. It’s our
job everyday to
make every
important aspect of
the customer
experience a little
better.”
Jeff Bezos,

COMPETITOR INSIGHT
“If you don’t have a
competitive advantage
don’t compete.”
Jack Welch
Former CEO – GE

COMPETITOR INSIGHT
“We watch our
competitors, learn
from them, see the
things that they were
doing for customers
and copy those things
as much as we can.”
Jeff Bezos,

COMPETITOR INSIGHT AND
FORESIGHT
Andy Grove - Former CEO, Intel
“Success breeds
complacency.
Complacency breeds
failure.
Only the paranoid
survive”

COMPETITOR FORESIGHT
Gary Hamel,
Visiting Professor London Business School
“Winning in business
is not about being
number one – its
about who gets to the
future first”

PERIPHERAL VISION
George S. Day,
Professor Wharton Business School
“Seeing what is
happening and
responding effectively
is a key capability.
Arrive too early for the
party and there are no
guests, arrive too late
and you are cleaning
up the trash.”

PERIPHERAL VISION
Meg Whitman,
CEO, HP
“We are living in an age of
relentless disruption that
is being driven by
technology.
Threats and uncertainty.
Constant connectivity.
Instant Gratification.
New channels, markets
and business models.”

PERIPHERAL VISION
Ginni Rometty,
CEO, IBM
“The only way you
survive is you
continuously
transform into
something else. It’s
this idea of continuous
transformation that
makes you an
innovation company .”

Richard Branson,
CEO, Virgin
“A company is
people….
Employees want to
know... Am I being
listened to or am I
a cog in the wheel?
People really need
to feel wanted."
EMPOWERMENT

EMPOWERMENT
“Failure is an option
here. If things are not
failing, you are not
innovating enough.”
Elon Musk,

EMPOWERMENT
“Celebrating individuals
and teams with great
customer stories has
been key to our
success.”
David Tudehope,
CEO Macquarie Telecom

John Mackey,
Founder and CEO, Whole Foods Market
“Business is simple.
Management’s job is to
take care of employees.
Employee’s job is to take
care of the customers.
Happy customers take
care of the shareholders.
It’s a virtuous circle"
EMPOWERMENT

Tony Collins,
Former CEO, Virgin Trains UK
“Put your trust in
people, not in
processes."
EMPOWERMENT

J W Marriott,
Chairman and CEO of Marriott International
“Take good care of your
employees, and they’ll
take good care of your
customers, and the
customers will come back"
EMPOWERMENT

Richard Branson,
CEO, Virgin
“Train people well
enough so they
can leave….
treat them well
enough so that
they don’t want to."
EMPOWERMENT

COLLABORATION
“Coming together is
a beginning;
Keeping together is
progress;
Working together is
success.”
Henry Ford,
Founder, Ford Motor Company

COLLABORATION
“Great things in
business are never
done by one person.
They’re done by a
team of people.”
Steve Jobs,

COLLABORATION
“The secret is to
gang up on the
problem, rather than
each other.”
Thomas Stallkamp,
Former Executive from Chrysler Corporation

COLLABORATION
“Collaboration is vital to
sustain what we call
profound or really deep
change, because without it,
organizations are just
overwhelmed by the forces
of the status quo.”
Dr. Peter M. Senge,
Senior Lecturer MIT Sloan School of Management

COLLABORATION
“The leaders who work most
effectively never say ‘I.’ And that’s
not because they have trained
themselves not to say ‘I.’ They don’t
think ‘I.’ They think ‘we’; they think
‘team.’ They understand their job to
be to make the team function.
They accept responsibility and don’t
sidestep it, but ‘we’ gets the credit….
This is what creates trust, what
enables you to get the task done.”
Dr. Peter F. Drucker,
The World’s Most Prolific Management Writer

“Blame is not for
failure it is for
failing to help OR
ask for help.”
Jergen Vig Knudstorp,
CEO Lego
COLLABORATION

“Everyone says Toyota is
the best company in the
world, but the customer
doesn’t care about the
world. They care if we are
the best in town or not.
That’s what I want to be.”
- Akio Toyoda, CEO Toyota
STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT

STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
Alex Bard,
Former SVP and GM at Salesforce.com
“As you grow, to get
everybody on the same
page you must
document what you
stand for by being very
clear about your values.
The first one is –
people matter.”

STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
John Kotter,
Professor Harvard Business School
“Leaders establish the vision
for the future and set the
strategy for getting there;
they cause change.
They motivate and inspire
other to go in the right
direction and they, along with
everyone else, sacrifice to
get there.”

STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
Warren Buffett,
CEO , Berkshire Hathaway
“Focus on your
customers and lead
your people as
thought their lives
depend on your
success.”

STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
Michael Porter, Professor, Harvard Business School
Author – Competitive Strategy
“The essence of
strategy is choosing
what not to do”

STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
Jack Welch
Former CEO – GE
“Good business
leaders create a
vision, articulate the
vision, passionately
own the vision and
relentlessly drive it
to completion”

STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
“A mere 7% of
employees today fully
understand their
company’s strategies
and what’s expected of
them in order to help
achieve company
goals”
Robert S Kaplan – Professor, Harvard Business School.
Coauthor - The Balanced Scorecard

STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
“If the rate of change on
the outside exceeds the
rate of change on the
inside, then the end is
near.”
Jack Welch
Former CEO – GE

David Thodey,
Former CEO, Telstra
“As a leader, I want
to be an agent for
the customer."

Tony Collins,
Former CEO, Virgin Trains UK
“A leader needs
passion, courage
and an ability to
listen."

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