Bobby and I went through some old questionnaires about customer requirements for languages, then we compiled a new one and sent it out to a few dozen people we knew.

We came up with three core touchy feely words.

We knew we?d never find someone called Rock Hard, which was our ideal name, and for a while we toyed with the idea of just creating the character but never letting him get seen.

At Sun, we have a special number you can call if there is something important happening.

We wanted the language to feel fresh, fun, and rock solid.

Bobby and I went through some old questionnaires about customer requirements for languages, then we compiled a new one and sent it out to a few dozen people we knew.

We knew we'd never find someone called Rock Hard, which was our ideal name, and for a while we toyed with the idea of just creating the character but never letting him get seen.

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

I never trust an executive who tends to pass the buck. Nor would I want to deal with him as a customer or a supplier.

All business success rests on something labeled a sale, which at least momentarily weds company and customer.

As regards this country, in which protection has always to some extent existed, it is the best customer that England ever had, and our demands upon her grow most steadily and regularly under protection.

You must never actually cheat the customer, even if you can. You must make her happy and satisfied, so she will come back.

The purpose of a business is to create a customer.

If you can't turn yourself into your customer, you probably shouldn't be in the ad writing business at all.

Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement.

And our size: The company this year is going to be close to $50 billion, so if that's the case and you can continue to grow that fast, I would rather put my energies to solving customer problems and growing our business than worrying about integrating and laying people off.

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.

You have got to have discipline and focus - on the customer and how you run the business.

We will ensure that associates continue to possess unsurpassed product knowledge and maintain their dedication to customer service and respect for their colleagues and for the communities in which they work and live.

Pager companies are very much looking to provide new services to help them regain some of their customer base.

Firms need to ensure that their ability to provide effective customer service keeps pace with their growth. If you're marketing your firm to new customers, you better be able to provide them service when they do business with you.

Even if someone is already in your market space, ask yourself whether you can approach it from a different angle and thereby secure your own customer base.

At a car dealership, the person who sells the car is the hero, and also gets the commission. But if the mechanics don't service that car well, the customer won't return.

This year I hope to introduce legislation that would require Power Administrations to list direct and indirect costs associated with ESA compliance as a line item on customer's power bills.

If you make the customer a promise... make sure you deliver it.

The toughest thing about the power of trust is that it's very difficult to build and very easy to destroy. The essence of trust building is to emphasize the similarities between you and the customer.

The gun dealer is not only paying these two police officers, but more importantly, the gun dealer has said he will never again sell more than one gun to a customer. This is exactly what we're trying to get the gun industry across the country to do.

There is one other business where the customer is always wrong and that's the media.

Because Microsoft seems to sometimes not trust customer choice, they salt XP with all these little gizmos and trap doors to get people to try Microsoft stuff. But the reality is that we're downloading more players than we ever have on a worldwide basis.

What the customer demands is last year's model, cheaper. To find out what the customer needs you have to understand what the customer is doing as well as he understands it. Then you build what he needs and you educate him to the fact that he needs it.

It puts the provider in a situation of looking for ways to have someone else pick up a piece of the cost. As a result, every customer who has insurance ends up paying a 'hidden premium.' It simply adds to the health care cost burden.

The well-satisfied customer will bring the repeat sale that counts.

The first step in exceeding your customer's expectations is to know those expectations.

Right or wrong, the customer is always right.

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.

Our business is about technology, yes. But it's also about operations and customer relationships.

No one bill will cure the problem of spam. It will take a combined effort of legislation, litigation, enforcement, customer education, and technology solutions.

Sam Walton's values are: treat the customer right, take care of your people, be honest in your dealings, pass savings along to the customer, keep things simple, think small, control costs and continuously improve operations.

Our customer base is not necessarily a leader, an early adopter.

So in 2000, when we changed the business model and started really focusing on that triangle and putting the customer in the center, we decided we should hold off - we've done enough consolidation; we've got enough critical mass.

That's a very critical phase in customer service because you can start to really understand what part of customer service has value to customers and what part is bothering customers.

Our multiaccess approach will make the life of the customer simpler.

A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.

Suppliers and especially manufacturers have market power because they have information about a product or a service that the customer does not and cannot have, and does not need if he can trust the brand. This explains the profitability of brands.

So if you're a customer today, the same person who came in to demonstrate the technology for you and helped you architect the solution before you bought it is likely going to be leading the team to help you do the implementation.

Like any small business owner, I experienced the pressures of building a company from the ground up - developing a business plan, balancing the books, meeting payroll and building a customer base.

When a customer enters my store, forget me. He is king.

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.

New Hampshire state government is a big customer for prescription drug companies. Just as businesses do, we should take advantage of the bargaining power we have as a big customer.