The Customer Is CEO

"Am I saying that customers perform the functions of a CEO? Yes, exactly."

"What does it take to be a truly customer-centered company?"

"The simple concept of devoting the enterprise to satisfying customers is like the first sketch in a storyboard intended ultimately to become a virtual-reality computer program."

"There is logic to putting the customer first."

"People make positive, progressive changes in their organizations they work for because they want to, not because they are being preached at incessantly."

"It is the shift in point of view that makes the difference."

"A company that identifies customers as the driving force has a clarity of purpose that cuts through a lot of strategic planning complexity."

"Alert and far-sighted leaders of organizations are ushering in a new era in which customer satisfaction measurement is destined to play a vital role."

"The linkage between quality and customer is at the root of a new measurement known as ROQ, return on quality."

"It has become the conventional wisdom that the ability of people in organizations to learn is perhaps the only remaining area where lasting competitive advantage can be achieved."

"If customer satisfaction is regarded as a pervasive driving force, it necessarily seeps into the charter and mission of every team."

"It is difficult, if not impossible, for an organization to become genuinely customer-centered if the leadership is not fully and relentlessly committed to the idea and understands the role management must play to support it."

"Once customer satisfaction measurement is fully understood and effectively utilized, it can become the focal point of vision that energizes an organization from top to bottom."

"Customer satisfaction and finance may seem to be strange bedfellows, but they are not."

"The marketing of the future will consider people as individuals, not as mass-migrating lemmings."

"The voice of the customer seldom is heard loudly and clearly by all of the people involved in product development decision making."

"What is your customer service strategy?"

"You want to measure not only what customers say but also what they do, which is often different from what they say."

"The simple question 'Who is our customer?' can stir a lively debate."

"Executives who usually won't make a move without lawyers and accountants at their side think nothing of writing ad copy or deciding what questions to ask on a survey."

"Incentive compensation _does_ work, despite the protestations of those who argue that money ranks fairly low whenever you ask people to classify the things that are important to them in their jobs."

"Despite the emphasis that has been placed on quality in recent years, and the evolution in understanding what it takes to achieve continuous improvement, life for workers in the trenches often has not changed much."

"As creatures of habit, we all change slowly, sometimes painfully."