For companies that strive to be among the best care takers of their customers and deliver service excellence here is the ultimate list of quotes. These are the wise words from business legends, customer experience crusaders, inspiring authors and marketing geniuses. We believe the below customer experience quotes speak essential yet simple truths, some to abide by and others for display as a daily reminder.

Marketing

“We take most of the money that we could have spent on paid advertising and instead put it back into the customer experience. Then we let the customers be our marketing.” – Tony Hsieh

“Customer service is the new marketing.” – Derek Sivers

“One customer well taken care of could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising.” – Jim Rohn

“The best advertising you can have is a loyal customer spreading the word about how incredible your business is.” – Shep Hyken

“If you make a sale, you can make a living. If you make an investment of time and good service in a customer, you can make a fortune.”- Jim Rohn

“So, get to know your customers. Humanize them. Humanize yourself. It’s worth it.” – Kristin Smaby

Expectation

“Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” – Donald Porter

“The customer’s perception is your reality.” – Kate Zabriskie

“Customer service is an opportunity to exceed your customer’s expectations.” – John Jantsch

“Customers today want the very most and the very best for the very least amount of money, and on the best terms. Only the individuals and companies that provide absolutely excellent products and services at absolutely excellent prices will survive.” – Brian Tracy

“Don’t try to the customer what he wants. If you want to be smart, be smart in the shower. Then get out, go to work and serve the customer!” – Gene Buckley

“Always give people more than what they expect to get.” – Nelson Boswell

“When a customer complains, he is doing you a special favor; he is giving you another chance to serve him to his satisfaction. You will appreciate the importance of this opportunity when you consider that the customer’s alternative option was to desert you for a competitor.” – Seymour Fine

“Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet.” – Kevin Stirtz

Service

“Customer service is part of a holistic customer experience that is capable of providing a critical competitive advantage in today’s increasingly cluttered and commoditized marketplace.” – Joseph Jaffe

“Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game.” – Tony Allesandra

“We asked ourselves what we wanted this company to stand for. We didn’t want to just sell shoes. I wasn’t even into shoes – but I was passionate about customer service.”- Tony Hsieh

“Service, in short, is not what you do, but who you are. It is a way of living that you need to bring to everything you do, if you are to bring it to your customer interactions.” – Betsy Sanders

“Customer service starts where customer experience fails.” – Chris Zane

“Whether you are big or small, you cannot give good customer service if your employees don’t feel good about coming to work.” – Martin Oliver

“If you’re not serving the customer, your job is to be serving someone who is.” – Jan Carlzon

Quality

“Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.” – Gucci Family Slogan

“Biggest question: Isn’t it really ‘customer helping’ rather than customer service? And wouldn’t you deliver better service if you thought of it that way?” – Jeffrey Gitomer

“The longer you wait, the harder it is to produce outstanding customer service.” – William H. Davidow

“Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet.” – Kevin Stirtz

“Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement.”– J.C.Penny

Success

“Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game.” – Tony Allesandra

“All business success rests on something labeled a sale, which at least momentarily weds company and customer.” – Tom Peters

“Customer service is just a day in, day out ongoing, never ending, and unremitting, persevering, compassionate, type of activity.” – Leon Gorman

“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.” – Ray Kroc

Purpose

“The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary.” – Sam Walton

“We don’t want to push our ideas on to customers, we simply want to make what they want.” – Laura Ashley

“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job to make the customer experience a little bit better.”- Jeff Bezos

“The purpose of a business is to create a customer who creates customers.” – Shiv Singh

“We have entered the era of the customer. Today, providing customers with outstanding customer service is essential to building loyal customers and a long lasting brand.” – Jerry Gregoire

“Our greatest asset is the customer! Treat each customer as if they are the only one!” – Laurice Leitao

Value

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein

“To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.” – Donald A. Adams

“Listening to feedback makes customers feel more appreciated and part of the value creation process.” – Ray Poynter

Commitment

“Make the customer the hero of your story.” – Ann Handley

“We don’t want to push our ideas on to customers, we simply want to make what they want.” – Laura Ashley

“Every company’s greatest assets are its customers, because without customers there is no company.”- Michael LeBoeuf

“If you love your customer to death, you can’t go wrong.” – Graham Day

“Customer service represents the heart of a brand in the hearts of its customers.” – Kate Nasser

“Customer service is the experience we deliver to our customer. It’s the promise we keep to the customer. It’s how we follow through for the customer. It’s how we make them feel when they do business with us.” – Shep Hyken

“Customer service is a voluntary act that demonstrates a genuine desire to satisfy, if not delight, a customer.” – Steve Curtin

Respect

“If you don’t care, your customer never will.” – Marlene Blaszczyk

“The way to a customer’s heart is much more than a loyalty program. Making customer evangelists is about creating experiences worth talking about.” – Valeria Maltoni

“Every company’s greatest assets are its customers, because without customers there is no company.” – Michael LeBoeuf

“When a customer enters my store, forget me. He is king.” – John Wanamaker

“If you respect the customer as a human being, and truly honor their right to be treated fairly and honestly, everything else is much easier.” – Doug Smith

“The single most important thing is to make people happy. If you are making people happy, as a side effect, they will be happy to open up their wallets and pay you.” – Derek Sivers

“It’s easier to love a brand when the brand loves you back.”– Seth Godin

“Profit is the applause you get for taking care of your customers and creating a motivating environment for your employees.” – Unknown

“In the world of Internet Customer Service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away.” – Doug Warner

Attitude

“Customer service is the new marketing.”- Derek Sivers

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

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” – Mother Teresa

“Right or wrong, the customer is always right.” – Marshall Field

“How you think about your customers influences how you respond to them.” – Marilyn Suttl

“Customer service is not a department, it’s an attitude!”- Unknown

Work

“It is not your customer’s job to remember you, it is your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don’t have the chance to forget you.”- Patricia Fripp

“For us, our most important stakeholder is not our stockholders, it is our customers. We’re in business to serve the needs and desires of our core customer base.” – John Mackey

“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” – Jeff Bezos

“A lot of people have fancy things to say about customer service, but it’s just a day-in, day-out, ongoing, never-ending, persevering, compassionate kind of activity.” – Christopher McCormic

“A sale is not something you pursue; it’s what happens to you while you are immersed in serving your customer.” – Unknown

“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000.” – Jeff Bezos

“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.” – Zig Ziglar

Wisdom

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates

“Customer service isn’t a department, it’s a philosophy!” – Shep Hyken

“Unless you have 100% customer satisfaction, you must improve.” – Horst Schulz

“Good customer service costs less than bad customer service.”– Sally Gronow

“He profits most who serves best.” – Arthur F. Sheldon

“Follow the customer, if they change — we change.”- Sir Terry

“Customers often know more about your products than you do. Use them as a source of inspiration and ideas for product development.” – David J. Greer

“If you get everybody in the company involved in customer service, not only are they ‘feeling the customer’ but they’re also getting a feeling for what’s not working.” – Penny Handscomb

“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology, not the other way around.” – Steve Jobs

“Whoever understands the customer best, wins.” – Mike Gospe

“The customer experience is the next competitive battleground.” – Jerry Gregoire

“Until you understand your customers – deeply and genuinely – you cannot truly serve them.” – Rasheed Ogunlaru

“The single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that there are no results inside its walls. The result of a business is a satisfied customer.” – Peter Drucker

Customer First

“Everything starts with the customer.” – Louis XIV

“If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.” – Jeff Bezos

"When the customer comes first, the customer will last.”- Robert Half

“If you love your customer to death, you can’t go wrong.” – Graham Day

“So I think instead of focusing on the competition, focus on the customer.” – Scott D. Cook

“Revolve your world around the customer and more customers will revolve around you." – Heather Williams

"We’re not competitor-obsessed, we’re customer-obsessed. We start with what the customer needs and we work backwards. – Jeff Bezos

"Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your ability to deliver the right story to the others." – Seth Godin

Communication

“Whatever your business is, talk to your customers and provide them with what they want. It makes sense.” – Robert Bowman

“Service, in short, is not what you do, but who you are. It is a way of living that you need to bring to everything you do, if you are to bring it to your customer interactions.” – Betsy Sanders

“Go beyond merely communicating to ‘connecting’ with people.” – Jerry Bruckner

“Every contact we have with a customer influences whether or not they’ll come back. We have to be great every time or we’ll lose them.” – Kevin Stirtz

“Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers.” – Ross Perot

“Customers may forget what you said but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.” – Unknown

“Make a customer, not a sale.” – Katherine Barchetti

“Memorable customer service can only take place in a human-to-human situation.” – Jeffrey Gitomer

“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.” – Jeff Bezos

Business

"A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.”- Michael LeBoeuf

“Each business is a victim of Digital Darwinism, the evolution of consumer behavior when society and technology evolve faster than the ability to exploit it.” – Brian Solis

“Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.” – Seth Godin

“For or us, our most important stakeholder is not our stockholders, it is our customers. We’re in business to serve the needs and desires of our core customer base.” – John Mackey

“Profit in business comes from repeat customers; customers that boast about your product and service, and that bring friends with them.” – Edwards Deming

"Be dramatically willing to focus on the customer at all costs, even at the cost of obsoleting your own stuff.” – Scott D. Cook

“There is a spiritual aspect to our lives — when we give, we receive — when a business does something good for somebody, that somebody feels good about them!” – Ben Cohen

“It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money … It is the customer who pays the wages.” – Henry Ford

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk … In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“Profit in business comes from repeat customers; customers that boast about your product and service, and that bring friends with them.” – Edwards Deming

“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.” – Zig Ziglar

“Good service is good business.” – Siebel Ad

Customer Loyalty

“There is a big difference between a satisfied customer and a loyal customer.”- Shep Hyken

“Since it’s so expensive to gain new customers today, what can you do to establish an unbreakable bond?” – Chet Holmes

“Repeat business or behavior can be bribed. Loyalty has to be earned.”- Janet Robinson

“Your customer doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” – Damon Richards

“Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless.”- Jeffrey Gitomer

“Merely satisfying customers will not be enough to earn their loyalty. Instead, they must experience exceptional service worthy of their repeat business and referral. Understand the factors that drive this customer revolution.” – Rick Tate

Culture

“Everyone in an organization should be involved with customer service, not only are they feeling the customer but they are getting a feeling for what’s not working.” – Penny Handscomb

“Whether you are big or small, you cannot give good customer service if your employees don’t feel good about coming to work.” – Martin Oliver

“You’ll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be easily duplicated, but a strong customer service culture can’t be copied.” – Jerry Fritz

“You are serving a customer, not a life sentence. Learn how to enjoy your work.” – Laurie McIntosh

Hope you found all the inspiration to lend an exceptional customer experience culture to live by. Visit our blog for more.