It’s football season, and if you want the perfect example of fervent, long-term customer and brand loyalty, look no further than the fans of every major NFL and college football team in the nation.
There’s an incredible magic around being part of a winning team, of everyone working together to create goals and then to achieve and surpass them. And while there may be some well-liked and well-known individual stars that represent the face of the organization, it takes every member of the team, including the fans, to get behind the brand to motivate, promote, represent and ensure its continued success.
Here are 14 game-changing quotes to inspire your organization in growing and retaining your biggest, best and valued fans, your customers:
1. “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, Founder, McDonalds
2. “The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary.” – Sam Walton, Founder, Wal-Mart
3. “Customer service is just a day-in, day-out ongoing, never-ending, unremitting, persevering, compassionate, type of activity.” – Leon Gorman, former Chairman, L.L.Bean
4. “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, Kwik-Fit Financial Services
5. “What gets measured, gets done. And what gets recognized gets done again, and even better.” – Robert Crawford, Director, Institute of Customer Service
6. “If you make customers unhappy in the real world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.” – Jeff Bezos, Founder, Amazon.com
7. “If you wonder what getting and keeping the right employees has to do with getting and keeping the right customers, the answer is everything.” – Fred Reichheld, Author, Business Strategist
8. “There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.” – Roger Staubach, Hall of Fame NFL Quarterback
9. “As far as customers are concerned, you are the company. This is not a burden, but the core of your job. You hold in your hands the power to keep customers coming back – perhaps even to make or break the company.” – Unknown
10. “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, Author, Customer Service thought leader
11. “The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing” – John Russell, Former VP, Harley Davidson
12. “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. If you are seizing on a new business opportunity, deliberately move your customers’ expectations up a few notches and consistently over-deliver on your promises – you will leave your competitors struggling to catch up.” – Sir Richard Branson, Founder, Virgin Group
13. “Hopefully, ten years from now people won’t even realize we started out selling shoes. They will just think about Zappos as a place to get the best customer service.” – Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos
14. “Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game.” – Dr. Tony Alessandra, Author and Consultant
These are great quotes! At the end of the day we need to live it and breath it to truly impact our customers. Happy employees will deliver great customer service because they believe in what they are selling. Expectations is also key and is a great way to create a loyal customer when we have exceeded their expectations!