Inspiring Quotes for Servers: A Collection to Elevate Your Service

"The only certain means of success is to render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be."

- Og Mandino

"You are allowed to do this, don’t worry about the rules, don’t worry about getting into trouble, your job is to take care of the customer, your job is to make that person leave happy. And you have all kinds of leeway to do that."

- John Pepper

"You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want."

- Zig Ziglar

"Customer service should not be a department. It should be the entire company."

- Tony Hsieh

"Satisfaction is a rating. Loyalty is a brand."

- Shep Hyken

"You’ll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be too easily duplicated. But a strong customer service culture cannot be copied."

- Jerry Fritz

"Caring has the gift of making the ordinary special."

- George R. Bach

"If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will."

- Bob Hooey

"Profit is not the legitimate purpose of business. The legitimate purpose of business is to provide a product or service that people need and do it so well that it’s profitable."

- James Rouse

"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

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

- Winston Churchill

"To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity."

- Douglas Adams

"Men are rich only as they give. He who gives great service gets great rewards."

- Elbert Hubbard

"Although the skills aren’t hard to learn, finding the happiness and finding the satisfaction and finding fulfillment in continuously serving somebody else something good to eat, is what makes a really good restaurant."

- Mario Batali

"Excellent businesses don’t believe in excellence, only in constant improvement and constant change."

- Tom Peters

"Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness."

- Leo Tolstoy

"Life is for service."

- Fred Rogers

"I’m working harder than ever now, and I’m putting on my pants the same as I always have. I just get up every day and try to do a little better than the day before, and that is to run a great restaurant with great food, great wine, and great service. That’s my philosophy."

- Emeril Lagasse

"The purpose of a business is to get and keep a customer."

- Theodore Levitt

"Although a great restaurant experience must include great food, a bad restaurant experience can be achieved through bad service alone. Ideally, service is invisible. You notice it only when something goes wrong."

- Dana Spiotta

"Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers."

- Seth Godin

"Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"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

"Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the customer gets out of it."

- Peter Drucker

"A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity."

- The Buddha

"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

"You are serving a customer, not a life sentence. Learn how to enjoy your work."

- Laurie McIntosh

"Your customer’s perception is your reality."

- Kate Zabriskie

"Great customer service doesn’t mean that the customer is always right, it means that the customer is always honored."

- Chris LoCurto

"Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong."

- Donald Porter

"It’s not about having the right opportunities. It’s about handling the opportunities right."

- Mark Hunter

"The purpose of a business is to create a customer who creates customers."

- Shiv Singh

"Your customer doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care."

- Damon Richards

"Every great business is built on friendship."

- JC Penney

"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning."

- Bill Gates

"Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless."

- Jeffrey Gitomer

"To earn the respect (and eventually love) of your customers, you first have to respect those customers. That is why Golden Rule behavior is embraced by most of the winning companies."

- Colleen Barrett

"Always render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be."

- Og Mandino

"The customer experience is the next competitive battleground."

- Jerry Gregoire

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

- Michael LeBoeuf

"Treat the customer like you would want to be treated. Period!"

- Brad Schweig

"The customer is why we are here. If we take good care of them, they’ll give us good reason to come back."

- Jenny McKenzie

"It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages."

- Henry Ford

"Loyal customers, they don’t just come back, they don’t simply recommend you, they insist that their friends do business with you."

- Chip Bell

"Earn your success based on service to others, not at the expense of others."

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

"Customers are the lifeblood of any business."

- Chris Corrigan

"Customer service is the new marketing."

- Derek Sivers

"Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence—only in constant improvement and constant change."

- Tom Peters

"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

"The sole purpose of business is service. The sole purpose of advertising is explaining the service which business renders."

- Leo Burnett

"Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first."

- Simon Sinek

"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him."

- Commonly attributed to Mahatma Gandhi

"Customers may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel."

- Warren Buffett

"The customer’s perception is your reality."

- Kate Zabriskie

"Always do more than is required of you."

- George S. Patton

".. consists in giving, and in serving others."

- Henry Drummond

"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works."

- Jeff Bezos

"Here is a simple but powerful rule: always give people more than what they expect to get."

- Nelson Boswell

"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."

- Maya Angelou

"Every day we’re saying, ‘How can we keep this customer happy? How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this?’ …because if we don’t, somebody else will."

- Bill Gates

"Customer service is just a day in, day out ongoing, never-ending, unremitting, persevering, compassionate, type of activity."

- Leon Gorman

"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

"A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large."

- Henry Ford

"Customers who love you will market for you more powerfully than you can possibly market yourself."

- Jeanne Bliss

"The key is to set realistic customer expectations and then not to just meet them, but to exceed them—preferably in unexpected and helpful ways."

- Richard Branson

"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

"One customer well taken care of could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising."

- Jim Rohn

"Good customer service costs less than bad customer service."

- Sally Gronow

"If you love what you’re doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours."

- Ray Kroc

"The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary."

- Sam Walton

"The path to your own happiness is usually found in service."

- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

"When you are able to shift your inner awareness to how you can serve others, and when you make this the central focus of your life, you will then be in a position to know true miracles in your progress toward prosperity."

- Wayne W. Dyer

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work."

- Steve Jobs

"Everyone wants to be appreciated, so if you appreciate someone, don’t keep it a secret."

- Mary Kay Ash

"Motivating employees to work at their full potential is the main premise of successful management."

- Eraldo Banovac

"Connect the dots between individual roles and the goals of the organization. When people see that connection, they get a lot of energy out of work. They feel the importance, dignity and meaning in their job."

- Scott and Kelly Blanchard

"When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute."

- Simon Sinek

"Leave your ego at the door every morning, and just do some truly great work. Few things will make you feel better than a job brilliantly done."

- Robin S. Sharma

"Good leadership requires you to surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree with you without fear of retaliation."

- Doris Kearns Goodwin

"Leadership is absolutely about inspiring action, but it is also about guarding against mis-action."

- Simon Sinek

"When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion."

- Dale Carnegie

"Teamwork is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make the money that you want without becoming very good at it."

- Brian Tracy

"Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean."

- Ryunosuke Satoro

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"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

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."

- Mark Twain

"Treat the customer like you would want to be treated. Period."

- Brad Schweig

"An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage."

- Jack Welch

"Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer."

- Denis Waitley

"You don’t earn loyalty in a day. You earn loyalty day by day."

- Jeffrey Gitomer

"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships."

- Michael Jordan

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out."

- Robert Collier

"Leaders must exemplify integrity and earn the trust of their teams through their everyday actions."

- Marilyn Hewson

"We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are."

- Max DePree

"Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."

- Peter Drucker

"Look after the customers and the business will take care of itself."

- Ray Kroc

"Focus on your customers and lead your people as though their lives depend on your success."

- Warren Buffett

"Motivation comes from working on things we care about. It also comes from working with people we care about."

- Sheryl Sandberg

"Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

- Saint Francis

"Your culture is how your company makes decisions when you’re not there. It’s the set of assumptions your employees use to resolve the problems they face every day. It’s how they behave when no one is looking. If you don’t methodically set your culture, then two-thirds of it will end up being accidental, and the rest will be a mistake."

- Ben Horowitz

"If you wonder what getting and keeping the right employees has to do with getting and keeping the right customers, the answer is everything."

- Frederick Reichheld

"Important achievements require clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies."

- Carol S. Dweck

"As a leader it is important to not just see your own success. But focus on the success of others."

- Sundar Pichai

"Throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours."

- Dale Carnegie

"A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is—it is what consumers tell each other it is."

- Scott Cook

"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is hard work."

- Stephen King

"It’s not about money or connection — it’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone."

- Mark Cuban

"Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy."

- Robert Hall

"In the long arc of time, you are only relevant if customers love you."

- Tim Cook

"Although your customers won’t love you if you give bad service, your competitors will."

- Kate Zabriskie

"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence."

- Vince Lombardi

"Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless."

- Jamie Paolinetti

"Working hard is very important. You're not going to get anywhere without working extremely hard."

- George Lucas

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do."

- Steve Jobs

"Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

- Napoleon Hill

"Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, 'What's in it for me?'"

- Brian Tracy

"What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other?"

- George Eliot

"The world is moved not only by the mighty shoves of the heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker."

- Helen Keller

"Two important things are to have a genuine interest in people and to be kind to them. Kindness, I've discovered, is everything."

- Isaac Bashevis Singer

"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

"If you just communicate, you can get by. But if you communicate skillfully, you can work miracles."

- Jim Rohn

"The most important adage and the only adage is, the customer comes first, whatever the business, the customer comes first."

- Kerry Stokes

"Our greatest asset is the customer! Treat each customer as if they are the only one!"

- Laurice Leitao

"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 in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time."

- Marian Wright Edelman

"Every company's greatest assets are its customers, because without customers there is no company."

- Michael LeBoeuf

"Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier."

- Mother Teresa

"The only certain means is to render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be."

- Og Mandino

"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

"Until you understand your customers — deeply and genuinely — you cannot truly serve them."

- Rasheed Ogunlaru

"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

"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

"Seek first to understand. Then to be understood."

- Stephen Covey

"The magic formula that successful businesses have discovered is to treat customers like guests and employees like people."

- Tom Peters

"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

"The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but exceed them — preferably in unexpected and helpful ways."

- Richard Branson

"People don’t buy for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons."

- Zig Ziglar

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view."

- Harper Lee

"You can have what you want if you help other people get what they want."

- Zig Ziglar

"Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves."

- Steve Jobs

"People will soon forget what you said. They will NEVER forget how you made them feel."

- Dr. Maya Angelou

"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 friends."

- Jeff Bezos

"We are superior to the competition because we hire employees who work in an environment of belonging and purpose. We foster a climate where the employee can deliver what the customer wants. You cannot deliver what the customer wants by controlling the employee."

- Horst Schulze

"There are many who subscribe to the convention that service is a business cost, but our data demonstrates that superior service is an investment that can help drive business growth. Investing in quality talent, and ensuring they have the skills, training and tools that enable them to empathize and actively listen to customers are central to providing consistently excellent service experiences."

- Jim Bush

"Always deliver more than expected."

- Larry Page

"Customer service shouldn't just be a department, it should be the entire company."

- Tony Hsieh

"Virtually nothing else is as important as how one is made to feel in any business transaction. Hospitality exists when you believe the other person is on your side."

- Danny Meyer

"Our mission statement about treating people with respect and dignity is not just words but a creed we live by every day. You can't expect your employees to exceed the expectations of your customers if you don't exceed the employees' expectations of management."

- Howard Schultz

"You are allowed to do this — don't worry about the rules, don't worry about getting into trouble, your job is to take care of the customer. Your job is to make the person leave happy."

- John Pepper

"If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful."

- Jeff Bezos

"If the shopper feels like it was poor service, then it was poor service. We are in the customer perception business."

- Mark Perrault

"Customer service represents the heart of a brand in the hearts of its customers."

- Kate Nasser

"Zappos uses call center technology to track average call time per agent. But the goal isn't to reduce this average — it's more important that we make an emotional connection with the customer, rather than just quickly getting them off the phone."

- Tony Hsieh

"Happy customers are your biggest advocates and can become your most successful sales team."

- Lisa Masiello

"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

"Even the best of what formerly passed for good customer service is no longer enough. You have to be no less than a customer concierge, doing everything you can to make every one of your customers feel acknowledged, appreciated, and heard. You have to make them feel special, just like when your great-grandmother walked into Butcher Bob's shop or bought her new hat, and you need to make people who aren't your customers wish they were."

- Gary Vaynerchuk

"Good customer service means that we leave customers better than we found them. Even if we can’t solve the problem or do what they want us to do, we can at least smile, be cheerful, and respond compassionately to each person. If our customers leave with a smile, even when they’re having a hard time, then we’ve done well."

- Nicole Thelin

"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

"Here is a simple but powerful rule: Always give people more than what they expect to get."

- Nelson Boswell

"The two most powerful things in existence: a kind word and a thoughtful gesture."

- Kenneth Langone

"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

"When a business does something good for somebody, that somebody feels good about them!"

- Ben Cohen

"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 in our work. He is the purpose of it."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Employees aren't just workers, they're the backbone of business and that makes them more important than the boss any day of the week. Good Employees = Good Business."

- Kilroy J. Oldster

"If you don’t create a great, rewarding place for people to work, they won’t do great work."

- Ari Weinzweig

"If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way."

- Napoleon Hill

"Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value."

- Albert Einstein

"The real competitive advantage in any business is one word only, which is ‘people.’"

- Komil Toume

"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

"One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others."

- Lewis Carroll

"A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well."

- Jeff Bezos

"If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand."

- Howard Schultz

"Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers."

- Stephen R. Covey

"People may take a job for more money, but they often leave it for more recognition."

- Bob Nelson

"Your brand is what your business does, what you stand for, and how you approach your work. … Your reputation is what people remember and share about you."

- Ted Rubin

"A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent."

- Douglas MacArthur

"Customers who are merely satisfied remain your customers only as long as everything goes their way."

- Chip Bell

"Take time to appreciate employees and they will reciprocate in a thousand ways."

- Bob Nelson

"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

"The key is to set realistic expectations, then exceed them, preferably in unexpected and helpful ways."

- Richard Branson

"Service, in short, is not what you do, but who you are. It's a way of living that you need to bring to everything you do if you're to bring it to your customer interactions."

- Betsy Sanders

"Customer experience is the next competitive battleground. It’s where business is going to be won or lost."

- Tom Knighton

"In a world where products and services are becoming more and more commoditized, customer experience is the only true differentiator."

- Annette Franz

"Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. Start with employees and the rest follows from that."

- Herb Kelleher

"It is not your customer’s job to remember you. It is your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don’t have a chance to forget you."

- Patricia Fripp

"Here is the simple but powerful rule … always give people more than they expect to get."

- Nelson Boswell

"Ease your customers’ pain."

- Hazel Edwards

"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value."

- Albert Einstein

"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."

- Maya Angelou

"When the customer comes first, the customer will last."

- Robert Half

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echos are truly endless."

- Mother Teresa

"Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success."

- Arianna Huffington

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit."

- Aristotle

"Customer service shouldn’t be a department, it should be the entire company."

- Tony Hsieh

"The keys to brand success are self-definition, transparency, authenticity and accountability."

- Simon Mainwaring

"Take care of associates and they'll take care of your customers."

- J.W. Marriott

"When I meet successful people, I ask about 100 questions to find out who they attribute their success to. It is usually the same: persistence, hard work and hiring good people."

- Kiana To

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

- Scott D. Cook

"Customer experience to me is leadership bravery. The companies that are most admired are growing with their values and are choosing how they will grow and how they will not grow."

- Jeanne Bliss

"When a customer complains, he is doing you a special favor; he is giving you another chance to serve him to his satisfaction."

- Seymour Fine

"Building a good customer experience does not happen by accident. It happens by design."

- Clare Muscutt

"Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten."

- Gucci Family Slogan

"The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of a mistake."

- Meg Whitman

"Don't dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer."

- Denis Waitley

"Your best customers leave quite an impression. Do the same, and they won't leave at all."

- SAP Advertising

"Go beyond merely communicating to 'connecting' with people."

- Jerry Bruckner

"Self-respect tends to inspire respect from others."

- Nathaniel Branden

"Of course, it is not the employer who pays wages. He only handles the money. It is the product that pays wages and it is the management that arranges the production so that the product may pay the wages."

- Henry Ford

"All employees have an innate desire to contribute to something bigger than themselves."

- Jag Randhawa

"The man who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others."

- Hasidic Proverb

"Pay attention to those employees who respectfully ask why. They are demonstrating an interest in their jobs and exhibiting a curiosity that could eventually translate into leadership ability."

- Harvey Mackay

"Treat employees like partners, and they act like partners."

- Fred Allen

"The expert in anything was once a beginner."

- Helen Hayes

"Everyone talks about building a relationship with your customer. I think you build one with your employees first."

- Angela Ahrendts

"Leaders can let you fail and yet not let you be a failure."

- Stanley McChrystal

"Employees engage with employers and brands when they’re treated as humans worthy of respect."

- Meghan M. Biro

"We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes—understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success."

- Ariana Huffington

"Culture is about performance, and making people feel good about how they contribute to the whole."

- Tracy Streckenbach

"Life is about making an impact, not making an income."

- Kevin Kruse

"A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit."

- Arnold Glasow

"Research indicates that workers have three prime needs: interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company."

- Zig Ziglar

"Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy."

- Gretta Palmer

"The most important thing in communication is to hear what is not said."

- Peter Drucker

"Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you."

- Margaret Thatcher

"Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them."

- Henry Ford

"Thank your customer for complaining and mean it. Most will never bother to complain. They’ll just walk away."

- Marilyn Suttle

"It doesn’t take strength to win. It takes the true heart of the team to win."

- Emily Voyles

"It is not a question of how well each process works; the question is how well they all work together."

- Lloyd Dobens

"Synergy — the bonus that is achieved when things work together harmoniously."

- Mark Twain

"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

"You don't earn loyalty in a day. You earn loyalty day-by-day."

- Jeffrey Gitomer

"The nice thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side."

- Margaret Carty

"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply."

- Stephen R. Covey

"The magic ‘mind reading’ anticipatory service phrase is: ‘If that was me, what would I want?'"

- Steve Cokkinias

"Luck? I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work—and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't."

- Lucille Ball

"Your ability to communicate is an important tool in your pursuit of your goals, whether it is with your family, your co-workers or your clients and customers."

- Les Brown

"One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others."

- Lewis Carol

"When you assume negative intent, you're angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response."

- Indra Nooyi

"When you serve the customer better, they always return on your investment."

- Kara Parlin

"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

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The best performers set goals that are not about the outcome but about the process of reaching the outcome."

- Geoff Colvin

"The employer generally gets the employees he deserves."

- J. Paul Getty

"People want to know they matter, and they want to be treated as people. That’s the new talent contract."

- Pamela Stroko

"Any company designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st."

- David S. Rose

"Whether it’s a bored demeanor, a dismissive look or just plain rude behavior, sloppy customer service spells disaster faster than just about any other business transgression."

- Lauren Simonds

"Thank your customer for complaining and mean it. Most will never bother to complain. They'll just walk away."

- Marilyn Suttle

"The more advocates you have, the fewer ads you have to buy."

- Dharmesh Shah

"In the world of internet customer service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away."

- Doug Warner

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

- Abraham Lincoln

"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?"

- George Eliot

"Nothing is as contagious as enthusiasm."

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Once you have commitment, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there."

- Haile Gebrselassie

"Goodwill is the only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy."

- Marshall Field

"It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it."

- Benjamin Franklin

"If you don't care, your customer never will."

- Marlene Blaszczyk

"Bottom-line obsession comes from turning the pursuit of money into a God and forgetting the real master your business serves: The Customer."

- Michael Shevack

"Sales without Customer Service is like stuffing money into a pocket full of holes."

- David Tooman

"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him."

- David Brinkley

"If the end result is customer satisfaction, your business will thrive. If the end result is customer loyalty, your business will bloom."

- Pooja Agnihotri

"Everyone in an organisation 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

"Remember, the best job goes to the person who can get it done without passing the buck or coming back with excuses."

- Napoleon Hill

"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

"How you think about a problem is more important than the problem itself — so always think positively."

- Norman Vincent Peale

"Whether it's a bored demeanor, a dismissive look or just plain rude behavior, sloppy customer service spells disaster faster than just about any other business transgression."

- Lauren Simonds

"Stellar service should be non-negotiable and merchants shouldn't hide behind self-service tools and technology when it comes to knowing their products and taking care of their customers."

- Lauren Freedman

"It's much harder to provide great customer service than I would have ever realised. It's much more art than science in some of these other areas and not just about the facts but about how you are conveying them."

- David Yu

"When you make a mistake, there are only three things you should ever do about it: admit it, learn from it, and don't repeat it."

- Bear Bryant

"The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra."

- Jimmy Johnson

"The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said."

- Peter Drucker

"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

"Never underestimate the power of the human element. Whether it's assisting a guest with a special request or a friendly greeting from staff members in the hallway, the people aspect plays a key role in guest satisfaction and loyalty."

- Ramez Faza

"Inside of every problem lies an opportunity."

- Robert Kiyosaki

"Rule 1: The customer is always right. Rule 2: If the customer is ever wrong, read Rule 1."

- Stew Leonard's Grocery Store Customer Policy

"Be helpful — even if there's no immediate profit in it."

- Susan Ward

"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else."

- Booker T. Washington

"Expecting people to reflect the productivity patterns of machinery is crazy if we also expect them to be creative, present and engaged."

- Martin Hill-Wilson

"Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet."

- Kevin Stirtz

"Leadership is service, not position."

- Tim Fargo

"If we consistently exceed the expectations of employees, they will consistently exceed the expectations of our customers."

- Shep Hyken

"To give without any reward, or any notice, has a special quality of its own."

- Anne Morrow Lindeberg

"An authentic and honest brand narrative is fundamental today; otherwise, you will simply be edited out."

- Marco Bizzarrik

"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

"You can’t transform something you don’t understand. If you don’t know and understand what the current state of the customer experience is, how can you possibly design the desired future state?"

- Annette Franz

"If you love your customer to death, you can't go wrong."

- Graham Day

"Profit in business comes from repeat customers; customers that boast about your product and service, and that bring friends with them."

- W. Edwards Deming

"What helps people, helps business."

- Leo Burnett

"There’s no technology that can be ‘The Answer’ to a better customer experience in the absence of effective strategy and planning."

- Brad Cleveland

"We are really competing against ourselves. We have no control over how other people perform."

- Pete Cashmore

"When you assume negative intent, you're angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed."

- Indra Nooyi

"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

"When you help others feel important, you help yourself feel important too."

- David J. Schwartz

"Our attitude towards others determines their attitude towards us."

- Earl Nightingale V

"How you think about your customer influences how you respond to them."

- Marilyn Suttle

"Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game."

- Tony Allesandra

"Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it."

- Peter Drucker

"A brand is what a business does; reputation is what people remember."

- Ted Rubin

"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

"In the world of Internet Customer Service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away."

- Doug Warner

"If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends."

- Jeff Bezos

"Only a life lived in the service to others is worth living."

- Albert Einstein

"We don’t want to push our ideas on to customers, we simply want to make what they want."

- Laura Ashley

"It starts with respect. 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

"Worry about being better; bigger will take care of itself. Think one customer at a time and take care of each one the best way you can."

- Gary Comer

"A lack of response is a response. It’s a response that says, ‘We don’t care about you very much.’"

- Jay Baer

"Organizations must master these in order to build a sustainable foundation for success."

- Aimee Lucas

"We just don't just talk. We don't just write white papers. We are implementers at our core. We deliver programs."

- Dr. Geetha Murali

"Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman, not the attitude of the prospect."

- William Clement Stone

"Face the simple fact before it comes involved. Solve the small problem before it becomes big."

- Laozi / Lao Tzu

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

- J. C. Penny

"It takes months to find a customer… seconds to lose one."

- Vince Lombardi

"The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing."

- John Russell

"Well done is better than well said."

- Benjamin Franklin

"I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen."

- Ernest Hemingway

"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment."

- Will Rogers

"To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation."

- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Whatever your business is, talk to your customers and provide them with what they want. It makes sense."

- Robert Bowman

"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 McCormick

"It’s much harder to provide a great customer service than I would have ever realised. It’s much more art than science in some of these other areas and not just about the facts but about how you are conveying them."

- David Yu

"Always begin with: 'So that I can better serve you, do you mind if I ask a few questions?'"

- Jodie Shaw

"Consumers are statistics. Customers are people."

- Stanley Marcus

"Every client you keep, is one less that you need to find."

- Nigel Sanders

"An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness."

- Elbert Hubbard

"The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought and attended to my answer."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Under promise and over deliver."

- Toby Bloomberg

"Unless you have 100% customer satisfaction…you must improve."

- Horst Schulz

"A single leaf working alone provides no shade."

- Chuck Page

"Criticism is the best sign you’re onto something."

- Michael Lopp

"We all talk, but we don’t really know how."

- Elizabeth Stokoe

"What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity."

- Dan Heath

"Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you."

- Mark Cuban

"Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbour is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions."

- Paulo Coelho

"Goodness and hard work are rewarded with respect."

- Luther Campbell

"It's through vulnerability that human beings create connections. The more vulnerable we can be with one another, the more that we'll trust one another and the more we'll be able to collaborate effectively."

- Neil Blumenthal

"If you don’t care, your customer never will."

- Marlene Blaszczyk

"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

"Make a customer, not a sale."

- Katherine Barchetti

"How you think about your customers influences how you respond to them."

- Marilyn Suttle

"If you’re not serving the customer, your job is to be serving someone who is."

- Jan Carlzon

"Good leaders must first become good servants."

- Robert Greenleaf

"There are no traffic jams along the extra mile."

- Roger Staubach

"If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?"

- John Adams

"People expect good service but few are willing to give it."

- Robert Gately

"Always keep in mind the old retail adage: Customers remember the service a lot longer than they remember the price."

- Lauren Freedman

"Right or wrong, the customer is always right."

- Marshall Field

"Everyone in an organisation 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

"Rule 1: The customer is always right. Rule 2: If the customer is ever wrong, re-read Rule 1."

- Stew Leonard

"The worst thing you can do is meet expectations one time, fall short another, and exceed every now and then. I guarantee you’ll drive your customers nuts and into the hands of the competition the first chance they get."

- Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles

"Sometimes one can become lost in a big company and lose sight of how what one does truly helps or impacts the end customer. If you are one of those, think of a fire brigade, a line of people passing buckets of water from one to the other from a source of water to the site of the fire. An individual in the brigade may not be able to see the end result, i.e., the water being thrown on the fire to put it out, but the contribution of the individual is indispensable to the final outcome."

- Grant Bright

"Words of comfort, skillfully administered, are the oldest therapy known to man."

- Lous Nizer

"Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm."

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you are in business. Yes, and that is also true if you are a housewife, architect or engineer."

- Dale Carnegie

"If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to keep getting what we’re getting."

- STEPHEN COVEY

"A little experience often upsets a lot of theory."

- S. Parkes Cadman

"I empathize with women in their high heels so I'll be there in my kilt and T-shirt and I'll walk around all day just to prove that if I can wear the shoes for 36 hours then certainly our customer can wear them."

- Marc Jacobs

"Customer service is not a department, it’s everyone’s job."

- Anonymous

"To keep a customer demands as much skill as to win one."

- American Proverb

"If you have a job without aggravations, you don’t have a job."

- Malcolm Forbes

"If you have a job without aggravations, you don't have a job."

- Malcolm Forbes

"Customers don’t care about your solutions. They care about their problems."

- Anon

"The customer experience is not a department, it’s everyone’s job."

- Anon

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

"Profit is the applause you get for taking care of your customers and creating a motivating environment for your employees."

"Customer service is not a department, it's an attitude!"

"A shoe without sex appeal is like a tree without leaves. Service without emotion is like a shoe without sex appeal."

"Good service is good business."

"Why is it a ‘close’ if it’s supposed to be the start of a customer relationship?"

"Always have an attitude of gratitude."

"A sale is not something you pursue; it's what happens to you while you are immersed in serving your customer."

"Your best customers leave quite an impression. Do the same, and they won’t leave at all."

"The purpose of business should be to make life better for people."

"I've always had a great work ethic, even when I was washing dishes."