Customer Insight Quotes

People don’t know what they want until they see it.

One of the changes I'm driving within Nokia is to adopt what we call 'the challenger mindset.' Let's understand that we have to fight, we have to fight our way through the difficulties, we have to listen to consumers, we have to both deliver what they need and also have some creativity and insight and deliver what the don't yet know they need.

What people in business think they know about the customer and market is likely to be more wrong than right...the customer rarely buys what the business thinks it sells him.

During my time growing a company in the private sector, one of my guiding principles was to meet and hear feedback from as many customers as possible.

You know the old adage that the customer's always right? Well, I kind of think that the opposite is true. The customer is rarely right.

At URBN, we see ourselves as customer specialists, a collection of brands, each one specializing in one particular customer group, a particular lifestyle or a life stage. We offer her things she wants in environments that inspire her. We talk to her and listen to her ideas and opinions.

We must learn what customers really want, not what they say they want or what we think they should want.

I've been an Apple guy since the mid 80's and that's when I was like, "Boy, you guys really got me here. I know exactly what you're doing, right down to your price points."

Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You'd be amazed how many companies don't listen to their customers.

I think Amazon is the preeminent pioneer in building a new way of doing commerce: personalized, database-driven commerce, where the big value is not in the purchase fulfillment, but in knowing as much about a customer base of ten or twenty million people as a corner store used to know about a customer base of a few hundred. In today's mass-merchandising world, that's largely gone; Amazon is trying to use computer technology to re-establish it.

Not being in tune with your customers is like living in an alternate reality; the way you think your customers feel about your product is not always the same as what your customers really think about your product.

There is no one thing that can turn around a rejection. But there is one answer: begin talking to your customers who have already bought from you and discover why they bought.

The closer you get to your ultimate customer, the more you learn about your business.

The secret of my success is that I deeply respect and learn from my peers and customers.

Every employee at Workday thinks about how they are going to help customers be successful. It is a simple formula, but a lot of companies go out, and they don't listen to their customers; they don't try to solve hard problems, making it tougher for themselves to create a great business.

Market leaders inevitably slip into decline when they tell the people what they want instead of giving the people what they want.

I've probably spent more time than any other brand reading every last comment. To listen to people the way you're able to online is very powerful.

Google has you at a very specific mental state that is, looking for something. And what they've always been able to say is, we deliver your message at the exact time someone is, say, looking for fishing hooks or looking for marriage counseling or looking for a lawyer for a particular problem. And here we have our customers telling you what is in their heart and soul. It's something that, you know, advertisers have wanted for decades.

Giving customers and prospects a glimpse into the entrepreneur's life and mindset can allow them to cultivate a deeper relationship with customers separately from the brand.

Customers are your best teachers. Learning about your customer's beliefs, values, and priorities teaches you which selling points you should emphasize.

When you know who your customers are, that can give you an edge on the competition.

The only two people who can give you real feedback about your product are people who just purchased it and people who have just canceled.

You can't make anything authentic by asking people what they want because they don't know what they want. That's what they're looking at you for.

Forget 'branding' and 'positioning.' Once you understand customer behavior, everything else falls into place.

The fact that used cars is our largest category is a good example. We would not have sat in a conference room and said, "Hey, how about used cars?" So what can be learned that is extensible to other companies is to ask what are your customers doing with your products that maybe you didn't anticipate that they would do? How do you think of your customers as your research and development lab, as opposed to having an R&D lab at headquarters?