Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.

Never say no when a client asks for something, even if it is the moon. You can always try, and anyhow there is plenty of time afterwards to explain that it was not possible.

I had a great time being a salesman because of the pitches that I gave when I was selling shoes. However, I don’t think I’m as well versed in shoes as I am in comedy. Being a salesman was all about being a people person, and I enjoy being around people. I also love talking to people – which is why I think I did so well.

I made lots of mistakes – the number one mistake being trusting other people with my money.

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

A complaint is a chance to turn a customer into a lifelong friend. I say that seriously, not as some press release baloney.

By putting the employee first, the customer effectively comes first by default, and in the end, the shareholder comes first by default as well.

I bought a company in the mid-’90s called Dexter Shoe and paid $400 million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $400 million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $400 billion. But I’ve made lots of dumb decisions. That’s part of the game.

The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.

I’m a big fan of all-you-can-eat plans, because they’re simpler for customers.

This is what customers pay us for – to sweat all these details so it’s easy and pleasant for them to use our computers. We’re supposed to be really good at this. That doesn’t mean we don’t listen to customers, but it’s hard for them to tell you what they want when they’ve never seen anything remotely like it.

Why go to a machine when you could go to a human being?

I’ve had all six of my books reach the New York Times bestseller list, which is especially rewarding seeing as I flunked out of high school twice because I couldn’t write. It just goes to show you that we learn from our mistakes.

I’d just like to be treated like a regular customer.

Some companies out there quote a start of production that is substantially in advance of when customers get their cars.

Not being afraid to be wrong – I had to learn how to do that.

I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

If you have the ability to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and start over, you come out stronger because you learn from whatever mistakes you made.

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

No one should be ashamed to admit he is wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs.

Nothing ruins your day more than getting a bad review.

I’ve sat in sushi bars, really fine ones, and I know how hard this guy worked, how proud he is. I know you don’t need sauce. I know he doesn’t even want you to pour sauce. And I’ve seen customers come in and do that, and I’ve seen him, as stoic as he tries to remain, I’ve seen him die a little inside.

The best of us must sometimes eat our words.

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

No parent is perfect; we all can look back and think of things we could’ve done to help our children be better prepared for adulthood. And sometimes it’s best to admit it to them and encourage them to learn from our mistakes.

I bought some batteries, but they weren’t included.

You should not build your customer service system on the premise that your organisation will never question the whims of your clients.

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.

As more airlines consolidated and grew larger and more focused on the bottom line, flying in the U.S. became an awful experience. Despite moves to block our airline from flying, Virgin America began service in August 2007 – with the goal of making flying good again.

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.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough in me to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we’d given customers what they said they wanted, we’d have built a computer they’d have been happy with a year after we spoke to them – not something they’d want now.

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.

I don’t know about you, but most of my exchanges with cashiers are not that meaningful.

If I’ve got a problem with one of my clients that needs to get solved, guess what I’m going to do? I’m going to call them up, and I’m going to say, ‚Hey, here’s what’s going on. This is the situation. This thing went sideways. I didn’t expect it. Now it’s going to take me some more time to get you what you need.‘ But I’m going to do that upfront.

I take a lot of pride in the work I do, because people pay to see me. They’ve got to get babysitters, park their car, get popcorn and candy. I’ve got to be conscious of that.

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

The funny thing is people won’t let me pay for things. I’ll be in a restaurant and the manager will say, ‚Oh no, it’s on the house.‘

I went to a general store. They wouldn’t let me buy anything specifically.

You know you’re not anonymous on our site. We’re greeting you by name, showing you past purchases, to the degree that you can arrange to have transparency combined with an explanation of what the consumer benefit is.

So I’ve seen life as one long learning process. And if I see – you know, if I fly on somebody else’s airline and find the experience is not a pleasant one, which it wasn’t in – 21 years ago, then I’d think, well, you know, maybe I can create the kind of airline that I’d like to fly on.

I don’t want to hear the specials. If they’re so special, put ‚em on the menu.

Our DNA is as a consumer company – for that individual customer who’s voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That’s who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it’s not up to par, it’s our fault, plain and simply.

This is an elegant hotel! Room service has an unlisted number.

It was my delusion and naivety that brought me here.

Who decides what’s in Windows? The customers who buy it.

I want to solidify as an artist and show that as I grow as a person and make mistakes and learn from them, I’m going to grow artistically.

In business, the idea of measuring what you are doing, picking the measurements that count like customer satisfaction and performance… you thrive on that.

In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.

If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does, he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees.

I went to a general store but they wouldn’t let me buy anything specific.

You want your customers to value your service.