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[[File:SteveJobsMacbookAir.JPG|thumb|right|You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new. -- - [[Steve Jobs]], 1989.]]
A '''[[:w:Customer|customer]]''' (sometimes known as a '''client''', '''buyer''', or '''purchaser''') is the recipient of a good, service, product, or idea, obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier for a monetary or other valuable consideration.
__NOTOC__
:<small>'''CONTENT'''</small> : [[#A - F|A - F]] , [[#G - L|G - L]] , [[#M - R|M - R]] , [[#S - Z|S - Z]] , [[#See also|See also]] , [[#External links|External links]]
== Quotes ==
:''Quotes are arranged alphabetically by author''
=== A - F ===
* Everybody knows by now, all businessmen are completely full of shit; just the worst kind of low-life, criminal, cocksuckers you could ever wanna' run into – a fuckin' piece of shit businessman. And the proof of it, the proof of it is, they don't even trust each other. They don't trust one another. When a business man sits down to negotiate a deal, the first thing he does is to automatically assume that the other guy is a complete lying prick who's trying to fuck him outta his money. So he's gotta do everything he can to fuck the other guy a little bit faster and a little bit harder. And he's gotta do it with a big smile on his face. You know that big, bullshit businessman smile? And if you're a customer – Whoah! – that's when you get the really big smile. Customer always gets that really big smile, as the businessman carefully positions himself directly behind the customer, and unzips his pants, and proceeds to service...the...account. 'I am servicing this account. This customer needs service.' Now you know what they mean. Now you know what they mean when they say, 'We specialize in customer service.' Whoever coined the phrase 'let the buyer beware' was probably bleeding from the asshole. That's business.
** [[George Carlin]], ''You Are All Diseased'' (1999)
* We had to be able to make a [[decision]] like ''that,'' without reprocessing all of our learning. So we take a small slice of information and a profile of the customer, set up a promotion, prime up the customer's history, and wait for the events. It primes up just the right amount of information in real time... [A system like that,] might not be as precise, but it would be statistically good enough. Maybe it would be wrong five percent of the time, but that's okay. It would be more like making judgment calls.
** [[Sumit Chowdhury]] In: Vivek Ranadive, Kevin Maney (2011) ''The Two-Second Advantage: How We Succeed by Anticipating the Future--Just Enough.'' p. 109-10
* We contest the conclusions of scholars such as Tushman and Anderson (1986), who have argued that incumbent firms are most threatened by attacking entrants when the innovation in question destroys, or does not build upon, the competence of the firm. We observe that established firms, though often at great cost, have led their industries in developing critical competence-destroying technologies, when the new technology was needed to meet existing customers’ demands.... Our findings support many of the conclusions of the resource dependence theorists, who contend that a firm's scope for strategic change is strongly bounded by the interests of external entities (customers, in this study) who provide the resources the firm needs to survive.
** [[Clayton M. Christensen]], Bower, J.L. (1996) "Customer power, strategic investment, and the failure of leading firms", ''Strategic Management Journal'', Vol. 17(3), p. 212)
* The customer is usually wrong; but statistics indicate that it doesn't pay to tell him so.
** [[Aleister Crowley]], ''[[w:Magick Without Tears|Magick Without Tears]]'' (1954), Ch XXI
* There is only one valid definition of a [[business]] [[purpose]]: ''to create a customer''.
** [[Peter Drucker]], ''The Practice of Management'' (1954), p. 37
* When [[w:Henry Ford|Henry Ford]] said, "The customer can have a car in any color as long as it's black," he was not joking.
** [[Peter Drucker]], ''MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices'' (1973), Chapter 17, pg.209
=== G - L ===
* Somewhere in the past. organizations were quite simple, and 'doing business' consisted of buying raw material from suppliers, converting into products, and selling it to customers... For the most part owner-entrepreneurs founded such simple business and worked along with members of their families. The family-dominated business still accounts for a large portion of the business start today.
** [[R. Edward Freeman]] (2007) ''Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach'' p.5
* You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.
** [[Steve Jobs]], [http://www.inc.com/magazine/19890401/5602.html Interview with Inc. Magazine for its "The Entrepreneur of the Decade Award" (1 April 1989)]
* Delighted customers are the only advertisement everyone believes.
** [[Ron Kaufman]], ''Lift Me UP! Service With A Smile,'' (2005)
* Your product is a starting point. A loyal customer is the goal.
** [[Ron Kaufman]], ''Lift Me UP! Service With A Smile,'' (2005)
* If customers leave without a purchase, you have not failed. But if customers leave without a smile, you have.
** [[Ron Kaufman]], ''Lift Me UP! Service With A Smile,'' (2005)
* The right measure is not how many customers you've got, but how closely you hold them.
** [[Ron Kaufman]], ''Lift Me UP! Service With A Smile,'' (2005)
* [[Industrial design]] keeps the customer happy, his client in the black and the designer busy.
** Raymond Loewy (ca. 1949); Cited in: Paul Greenhalgh (1993) ''Quotations and Sources on Design and the Decorative Arts.'' p. 117
=== M - R ===
* As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the product.
** [[Jef Raskin]], ''The Humane Interface'' (2001)
=== S - Z ===
* [[Organization]]s are defined from the inside out: they are described by who reports to whom, by departments and processes and matrices and perks. A business, on the other hand, is defined from the outside in by markets, suppliers, customers, and competitors.
** [[w:Thomas A. Stewart|Thomas A. Stewart]], American business writer, management consultant. 'Introduction to the Paperback Edition', ''Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations'' (1998).
* Pan Am takes good care of you. Marks & Spencer loves you. Securicor cares. I.B.M. says the customer is king. At Amstrad, we only want your money!
** [[Alan Sugar]] Quoted in the New York Times, September 28, 1987, from an earlier public speech.
* Users can work with analysts and object designers to formulate and tune system requirements. People from business, analytical and object design disciplines can come together, learn from each other and generate meaningful descriptions of systems that are to be built. Each participant and each project has slightly different concerns and needs. Practical application of use cases can go a long way to improve our ability to deliver just what the customer ordered.
** [[Rebecca Wirfs-Brock]], ''Designing scenarios: Making the case for a use case framework'' (1993); About ''Conclusion''
== See also ==
* [[Market]]
== External links ==
{{Wikipedia}}
[[Category:Business]]
[[Category:Commerce]]