Jeff Bezos has grown one of the biggest companies in the world, from scratch. He has a personal worth estimated at $59 billion, and his company employs roughly quarter of a million people.
There are, obviously, many reasons behind the growth of Amazon, and behind its ability to achieve success with such a variety of products (books, electronics, video streaming, cloud services). Among those reasons, Jeff himself mentions one time & time again: Customer focus.
Here’s a small snapshot of the many, many examples of Jeff explaining the role of ‘customer experience’ in Amazon’s business & in the company’s growth:
- “The most important single thing is to focus obsessively on the customer. Our goal is to be earth’s most customer-centric company.”
- “If there’s one reason we have done better than of our peers in the Internet space over the last six years, it is because we have focused like a laser on customer experience.”
- “We’re not competitor obsessed, we’re customer obsessed. We start with what the customer needs and we work backwards.”
- “Focusing on the customer makes a company more resilient.”
- “If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000.”
- “If we can arrange things in such a way that our interests are aligned with our customers, then in the long term that will work out really well for customers and it will work out really well for Amazon.”
- “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.”
- “If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.”
- “If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.”
- “If your customer base is aging with you, then eventually you are going to become obsolete or irrelevant. You need to be constantly figuring out who are your new customers and what are you doing to stay forever young.”
- “There are two ways to extend a business. Take inventory of what you’re good at and extend out from your skills. Or determine what your customers need and work backward, even if it requires learning new skills. Kindle is an example of working backward.”
And finally, our favorite: - “We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.”
