Delighted Customer Quotes

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The fairies, as their custom, clapped their hands with delight over their cleverness, and they were so madly in love with the little house that they could not bear to think they had finished it.
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens)
Your customers are always changing and so are their values, perceptions, and needs. Having up-to-date knowledge about them will help you in satisfying their needs as well as delighting them.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
When the reward is the activity itself--deepening learning, delighting customers, doing one's best--there are no shortcuts.
Daniel H. Pink (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us)
Does your manager know that you talk to your customers like this? (Blaine) If you’d like to talk to my mother, who owns this bar, my overindulgent brother, who manages it, or my father, who delights in kicking everyone’s ass around, about your treatment by me, just let me know and I’ll be more than happy to go get one of them for you. I know they’d just love to waste their time dealing with you. They’re real understanding that way. (Aimee)
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Unleash the Night (Dark Hunter, #8; Were-Hunter, #2))
I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
The imagination serves us only when the mind is absolutely free of any prejudice. A single prejudice suffices to cool off the imagination. This whimsical part of the mind is so unbridled as to be uncontrollable. Its greatest triumphs, its most eminent delights consist in smashing all the restraints that oppose it. Imagination is the enemy of all norms, the idolater of all disorder and of all that bears the color of crime.
Marquis de Sade (Philosophy in the Boudoir)
Seafood Newburg is a dish with a history. Well, of course MOST dishes have some kind of “history,” but this particular dish is sort of a history celebrity. It all began around 1876 when an “epicurean” named Ben Wenberg (or Wenburg) demonstrated the dish at Delmonico’s restaurant in New York City. After some “tweaking” by the Delmonico chef, Charles Ranhofer, the dish was added to the menu under the name “Lobster Wenburg.” It proved to be very popular. But sometime later, Wenburg got involved in a dispute with the Delmonico’s management and the dish was subsequently removed from the menu. But customers still requested it. So, the name was changed to “Lobster Newburg” and reappeared to the delight of restaurant customers. So, that’s the story. Probably. One can never be sure about these origin myths.
Mallory M. O'Connor (The Kitchen and the Studio: A Memoir of Food and Art)
They – psychopath and part psychopath – do well in the more unscrupulous types of sales work, because they take such delight in ‘putting it over on them’, getting away with it – and have so little conscience about defrauding their customers.” Our society is fast becoming more materialistic, and success at any cost is the credo of many businessmen. The typical psychopath thrives in this kind of environment and is seen as a business “hero”.
Andrew M. Lobaczewski (Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes)
Products that delight customers do the unexpected. They solve a problem customers didn’t know they had, or they evoke a positive emotion.
Nathan Furr (The Innovator's Method: Bringing the Lean Start-up into Your Organization)
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation Prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king And queen moult no feather. I have of late--but Wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all Custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily With my disposition that this goodly frame, the Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most Excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave O'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted With golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to Me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! in form and moving how Express and admirable! in action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the World! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, What is this quintessence of dust? man delights not Me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling You seem to say so.
William Shakespeare (Hamlet (Classics Illustrated #99))
When the reward is the activity itself—deepening learning, delighting customers, doing one’s best—there are no shortcuts. The only route to the destination is the high road. In some sense, it’s impossible to act unethically because the person who’s disadvantaged isn’t a competitor but yourself.
Daniel H. Pink (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us)
The portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze gods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and without satiety. I had gathered about me all gods because I believed in none, and experienced every pleasure because I gave myself to none, but held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel: I looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of Hera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels; and to my mind, for which symbolism was a necessity, they seemed the doorkeepers of my world, shutting out all that was not of as affluent a beauty as their own; and for a moment I thought as I had thought in so many other moments, that it was possible to rob life of every bitterness except the bitterness of death; and then a thought which had followed this thought, time after time, filled me with a passionate sorrow.
W.B. Yeats (Rosa Alchemica)
Traditional corporations, particularly large-scale service and manufacturing businesses are organized for efficiency. Or consistency. But not joy. Joy comes from surprise and connection and humanity and transparency and new...If you fear special requests, if you staff with cogs, if you have to put it all in a manual, then the chances of amazing someone are really quite low. These organizations have people who will try to patch problems over after the fact, instead of motivated people eager to delight on the spot. The alternative, it seems, is to organize for joy. These are the companies that give their people the freedom (and the expectation) that they will create, connect and surprise. These are the organizations that embrace someone who make a difference, as opposed to searching the employee handbook for a rule that was violated.
Seth Godin (Poke the Box)
I've been living like this for a long time - about twenty years. I'm forty now. I used to be in the civil service; I no longer am. I was a wicked official. I was rude, and took pleasure in it. After all, I didn't accept bribes, so I had to reward myself at least with that. (A bad witticism, but I won't cross it out. I wrote it thinking it would come out very witty; but now, seeing for myself that I simply had a vile wish to swagger - I purposely won't cross it out!) When petitioners would come for information to the desk where I sat - I'd gnash my teeth at them, and felt an inexhaustible delight when I managed to upset someone. I almost always managed. They were timid people for the most part: petitioners, you know. But among the fops there was one officer I especially could not stand. He simply refused to submit and kept rattling his sabre disgustingly. I was at war with him over that sabre for a year and a half. In the end, I prevailed. He stopped rattling. However, that was still in my youth. But do you know, gentlemen, what was the main point about my wickedness? The whole thing precisely was, the greatest nastiness precisely lay in my being shamefully conscious every moment, even in moments of the greatest bile, that I was not only not a wicked but was not even an embittered man, that I was simply frightening sparrows in vain, and pleasing myself with it. I’m foaming at the mouth, but bring me some little doll, give me some tea with a bit of suger, and maybe I’ll calm down. I’ll even wax tenderhearted, though afterwards I’ll certainly gnash my teeth at myself and suffer from insomnia for a few months out of shame. Such is my custom. And I lied about myself just now when I said I was a wicked official. I lied out of wickedness. I was simply playing around both with the petitioners and with the officer, but as a matter of fact I was never able to become wicked.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Notes from Underground)
What we want you to do is to change the mode of your website from a one-way sales message to a collaborative, living, breathing hub
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
The first method is to think across the traditional boundaries of your marketplace to alternatives, not just competitors.
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
The only innovation in delighting customers is to understand his need and meet it
Gangadhar Krishna
MAKE IT SO EASY TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU THAT IT’S NOT WORTH YOUR CUSTOMER’S TIME TO DO BUSINESS WITH ANYONE ELSE!
Ron Kaufman (UP! Your Service Action Steps: Strategies and Action Steps to Delight Your Customers Now!)
the measure of your success is the level of service you provide and the total satisfaction of your customers.
Ron Kaufman (UP! Your Service Action Steps: Strategies and Action Steps to Delight Your Customers Now!)
THOSE WHO BRING SUNSHINE INTO THE LIVES OF OTHERS, CANNOT KEEP IT FROM THEMSELVES.
Ron Kaufman (UP! Your Service Action Steps: Strategies and Action Steps to Delight Your Customers Now!)
Well-crafted and open-ended questions typically begin with What, Why, When, Who, How, and Where, all of which can prompt the most delightful of conversations.
Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
Understanding that customer service is the cornerstone of your customer experience helps you leverage it as an opportunity to delight customers and engage them in new, exciting ways.
Oscar Auliq-Ice (Happy Customers)
By delighting your customers, you'll cultivate loyalty, encourage repeat business, and turn your company into a profit magnet that attracts new customers through positive word-of-mouth.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
And in that time the custom of our praying was brought to mind: how we use for lack of understanding and knowing of Love, to take many means [whereby to beseech Him]. Then saw I truly that it is more worship to God, and more very delight, that we faithfully pray to Himself of His Goodness and cleave thereunto by His Grace, with true understanding, and steadfast by love, than if we took all the means that heart can think. For if we took all these means, it is too little, and not full worship to God: but in His Goodness is all the whole, and there faileth right nought.
Julian of Norwich (Revelations of Divine Love)
UMPTEEN people jolted themselves toward the still-lifeless body stocking of a peanut butter heiress. A kind of religious fervor displayed itself on the hard-breathing senior citizens of Cape Codpiece. Twice annually, they have gathered for the last two hundred years in a display which has to be seen to be conceived. Gnashing their gums in a fit of detergent, they call upon “Almighty Greg” to “send them a Kennedy.” This localized custom comes as rather a shock to many people; still, you can’t please everyone. Each year the used underwear of a prominent citizen is worshiped. This year it is Sylvia de Bortcha’s body stocking that has risen to the occasion. “I have been chosen because of my breeding habits,” she said to a delighted group of well-diggers. “I have worn these off and on for the past year and a half,” she proclaimed, her voice reaching an octave or more. The crowd went wild. “If this
John Lennon (Skywriting by Word of Mouth)
The NPI process was deflating for morale. But figuring out how to “boost morale” is not Amazonian. Other companies have morale-boosting projects and groups with names like “Fun Club” and “Culture Committee.” They view morale as a problem to be solved by company-sponsored entertainment and social interaction. Amazon’s approach to morale was to attract world-class talent and create an environment in which they had maximum latitude to invent and build things to delight customers
Colin Bryar (Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon)
It has often given my pleasure to observe, that independent America was not composed of detached and distant territories, but that one connected fertile, wide-spreading country was the portion of our western sons of liberty. Providence has in a particular manner blessed it with a variety of soils and productions, and watered it with innumerable streams, for the delight and accommodation of its inhabitants. A succession of navigable waters form a kind of chain round its borders, as if to bind them together; while the most noble rivers in the world, running at convenient distances, present them with highways for the easy communication of friendly aids, and the mutual transportation of their various ties. With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice, that Providence has been pleased to give us this one connected country to one united people -a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by they their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.
John Jay (The Federalist Papers)
The task of delighting customers is thus the job of everyone. It requires the efforts of everyone in the corporation—and beyond—to share insights and figure out ways to handle a challenge that is much more difficult than merely delivering a product or service.
Stephen Denning (The Age of Agile: How Smart Companies Are Transforming the Way Work Gets Done)
Now Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl, When Adam waked, so customed; for his sleep Was aerie-light, from pure digestion bred, And temperate vapors bland, which the only sound Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan, Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song Of birds on every bough; so much the more His wonder was to find unwakened Eve With tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek, As through unquiet rest: He, on his side Leaning half raised, with looks of cordial love Hung over her enamored, and beheld Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep, Shot forth peculiar graces; then with voice Mild, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes, Her hand soft touching, whispered thus. Awake, My fairest, my espoused, my latest found, Heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight! Awake: The morning shines, and the fresh field Calls us; we lose the prime, to mark how spring Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove, What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed, How nature paints her colors, how the bee Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet.
John Milton (Paradise Lost)
A manager's most important work is helping the people doing the work. Give them a goal and let them work. Remove any impediments that get in their way. Do anything that may make them more effective or productive. Then the organization can capitalize on the fruits of their work.
Ken Schwaber (Software in 30 Days: How Agile Managers Beat the Odds, Delight Their Customers, and Leave Competitors in the Dust)
I write them to improve my productivity as a programmer. Making the quality assurance department happy is just a side effect. Unit tests are highly localized. Each test class works within a single package. It tests the interfaces to other packages, but beyond that it assumes the rest just works. Functional tests are a different animal. They are written to ensure the software as a whole works. They provide quality assurance to the customer and don't care about programmer productivity. They should be developed by a different team, one who delights in finding bugs.
Martin Fowler (Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code)
We are not mentioning to the captain that Cajeiri is six,” Bren said. “She believes sixteen.” “Sixteen?” Cajeiri crowed, delighted. “Hush, rascal,” Ilisidi said. “It’s a convenient misunderstanding,” Bren said, “saving argument. And there would be argument about his presence otherwise, in a dangerous place. Human custom is against it.” “Do you hear?” Ilisidi said. “You must pretend ten more years, young scoundrel, to satisfy the ship-aiji’s expectations of your wisdom, your sense and your self-restraint.” “I think the ship-aiji will suspect me,” Cajeiri said sadly, and the Ragi-speakers could not but laugh a little.
C.J. Cherryh (Defender (Foreigner, #5))
Other March law offences included truce-breaking, attacking castles, impeding a Warden, importing wool, and a delightful local custom known as “bauchling and reproaching”. This meant publicly vilifying and upbraiding someone, usually at a day of truce; such abuse might be directed at a man who had broken his word, or had neglected to honour a bond or pay a ransom. The “bauchler” (also known as brangler, bargler, etc.) sometimes made his reproof by carrying a glove on his lance-point, or displaying a picture of his enemy, and by crying out or sounding a horn-blast, indicating that his opponent was a false man and detestable.
George MacDonald Fraser (The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers)
May 28, 1877 As I don’t believe in sending letters filled with treacle-like sentiment, I feel as if I should…send you a puppy or something. Alas. I don’t know if puppies keep when sent through the mails—and I doubt they’d pass through customs these days. It’s too bad you aren’t a pirate, as you’d once planned. That would make puppy delivery far more efficient. I’d bring up my own ship next to you and send you an entire broadside of puppies. You’d be buried in very small dogs. You’d be far too busy with puppy care to worry about anything else. This is now sounding more and more invasive, and less and less cheering—and nonetheless I have yet to meet anyone who was not delighted by a wriggling mass of puppies. If I ever did meet such a person, he would deserve misery. Do not doubt the power of the puppy-cannon. Edward P.S. If there is no puppy attached to this message, it is because it was confiscated by customs. Bah. Customs is terrible
Courtney Milan (The Suffragette Scandal (Brothers Sinister, #4))
You can absolutely run a great business without a single goal. You don’t need something fake to do something real. And if you must have a goal, how about just staying in business? Or serving your customers well? Or being a delightful place to work? Just because these goals are harder to quantify does not make them any less important.
Jason Fried (It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work)
recognize that one of the reasons Christmases past probably didn’t live up to your expectations is that you’ve tried to do too much, too perfectly. Look at that list. Choose to let only what you love best about the holidays remain. Cross out two more “musts.” Now there’s time for gazing out the window at gently falling snow, delighting in the sounds of bells and joyful music, savoring the sweet aromas of hot cider, roast turkey, and gingerbread, sipping hot chocolate and homemade eggnog, reading a holiday story each night at dusk, basking in a fire crackling on the hearth, and re-creating cherished customs that care for your soul as well as the souls of those you love.
Sarah Ban Breathnach (Simple Abundance: 365 Days to a Balanced and Joyful Life)
He will embrace a pure system, from its abstract truth, its beauty, its simplicity, and its promise of wide-extended benefit; unless custom has turned poison into food, he will hate the brutal pleasures of the chase by instinct; it will be a contemplation full of horror and disappointment to his mind, that beings capable of the gentlest and most admirable sympathies should take delight in the death-pangs and last convulsions of dying animals.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (A vindication of natural diet: Being one in a series of notes to Queen Mab (a philosophical poem))
if consumer demand should increase for the goods or services of any private business, the private firm is delighted; it woos and welcomes the new business and expands its operations eagerly to fill the new orders. Government, in contrast, generally meets this situation by sourly urging or even ordering consumers to “buy” less, and allows shortages to develop, along with deterioration in the quality of its service. Thus, the increased consumer use of government streets in the cities is met by aggravated traffic congestion and by continuing denunciations and threats against people who drive their own cars. The New York City administration, for example, is continually threatening to outlaw the use of private cars in Manhattan, where congestion has been most troublesome. It is only government, of course, that would ever think of bludgeoning consumers in this way; it is only government that has the audacity to “solve” traffic congestion by forcing private cars (or trucks or taxis or whatever) off the road. According to this principle, of course, the “ideal” solution to traffic congestion is simply to outlaw all vehicles! But this sort of attitude toward the consumer is not confined to traffic on the streets. New York City, for example, has suffered periodically from a water “shortage.” Here is a situation where, for many years, the city government has had a compulsory monopoly of the supply of water to its citizens. Failing to supply enough water, and failing to price that water in such a way as to clear the market, to equate supply and demand (which private enterprise does automatically), New York’s response to water shortages has always been to blame not itself, but the consumer, whose sin has been to use “too much” water. The city administration could only react by outlawing the sprinkling of lawns, restricting use of water, and demanding that people drink less water. In this way, government transfers its own failings to the scapegoat user, who is threatened and bludgeoned instead of being served well and efficiently. There has been similar response by government to the ever-accelerating crime problem in New York City. Instead of providing efficient police protection, the city’s reaction has been to force the innocent citizen to stay out of crime-prone areas. Thus, after Central Park in Manhattan became a notorious center for muggings and other crime in the night hours, New York City’s “solution” to the problem was to impose a curfew, banning use of the park in those hours. In short, if an innocent citizen wants to stay in Central Park at night, it is he who is arrested for disobeying the curfew; it is, of course, easier to arrest him than to rid the park of crime. In short, while the long-held motto of private enterprise is that “the customer is always right,” the implicit maxim of government operation is that the customer is always to be blamed.
Murray N. Rothbard (For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (LvMI))
Ningauble replied, “The Devourers want only to amass cash and to raise little ones like themselves to amass more cash and they want to compete with each other at cash-amassing. (Is that coincidentally a city, do you think, Fafhrd? Cashamash?) And the Devourers want to brood about their great service to the many universes—it is their claim that servile customers make the most obedient subjects for the gods—and to complain about how the work of amassing cash tortures their minds and upsets their digestions. Beyond this, each of the Devourers also secretly collects and hides away forever, to delight no eyes but his own, all the finest objects and thoughts created by true men and women (and true wizards and true demons) and bought by the Devourers at bankruptcy prices and paid for with trash or—this is their ultimate preference—with nothing at all.
Fritz Leiber (Swords Against Death (Lankhmar, 2))
Shouldn't we get up?" With unexpected strength,he grabbed her waist and rolled her over at the same time, poisitioning her so that she was astride him. "I don't think so." Bronwyn licked her lips. "It is Saint Stephen's Day. The people will be waiting." "For their pots full of money." "So you know the custom," she purred, letting her fingers play with the hairs on his chest. "Of course," he groaned. "I ordered the clay pots as soon as we got back after we went hunting.I'll pass them out tonight." "Did you know that you,too,get a present?" Bronwyn asked as she leaned down to kiss his naval, smiling with delight as his stomach contracted. Ranulf grinned back. "Really?And just what is in my clay pot?" "Your present doesn't come in a pot," she purred, smiling as her hand slowly moved lower,making a trail for her mouth and tongue to follow. "And even more lucky,you don't have to wait until tonight either.
Michele Sinclair (The Christmas Knight)
Visitors say, 'Real shrunken heads! Wow! How were they made? By slitting the skin, taking out the skull and brains and steaming them with hot sand? Gross!' But what no one asks is: how did they get here? What are they doing hanging up in a university museum in the south of England? Once you start to answer that question, you realize that shrunken heads like these are a product as much of European curiosity, European taste and European purchasing power as they are of an archaic tribal custom. It is time to turn the spotlight round and point it back at people like you and me, and at our ancestors, who were responsible for bringing hundreds of these heads into museums and people's homes and who delighted in them as much as -- if not more than -- the people who created them in the first place. After all, it is not the Shuar who are pressing their noses to the glass of an exhibition case in an Oxford University museum.
Frances Larson (Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found)
Angus had little taste for the moral disaster that the public realm had become, and had come to the realisation that there was no essential merit in knowing what was going on in this fraught and distasteful arena. If he did not follow the parliamentary debates in the Scottish Parliament, did it make the slightest difference to anything? It did not, he decided. If he declined to read what the President of France had been up to, would this be noticed in Paris? Or anywhere else? He thought not. And so, in search of inner peace, he had instituted a new custom: on one day each week he would neither read a newspaper nor listen to the news on the radio, nor watch it on television. Isolated from the world of events, he would give his attention to the world itself; he would inhabit his moment and his place, rather than the fevered world reflected in the news. And with that detachment he was delighted to discover a sense of peace and resolution that in the normal course of events eluded him, and eluded, too, he suspected, many of those who were enmeshed in the world of current events. He
Alexander McCall Smith (The Peppermint Tea Chronicles (44 Scotland Street, #13))
Once, on the road, Prim met a meditating sage who had spent most of his life on top of a flat rock. They had black bread and shared some ajash, as was custom. The sage was thankful, as the road was not very frequently traveled in those days and he was very near the point of starvation. During his conversation, he was delighted to learn of Prim’s extensive mastery of Empty Palms and the fifty five earthly purities. Delighted, and as payment for his meal, he taught Prim the meaning of watchfulness. This was the old breathing and cold-atum technique often used by warrior monks in those days. It ran through the following methodology: Build a tower, and make it impregnable. Make every stone so tightly sealed that no insect can squeeze through, no grain of sand can make it inside. Your tower must have no windows or doors. It must not accept passage by friend or foe. No weapon, no act of violence, and not one mote of love may penetrate its stony interior. “Why build the tower this way?” said Prim? “It will make you invincible,” said the sage, “This is the way of Ya-at slave monks. Their skin is like iron, and so are their hearts. They are inured to death and fear. Grief shall never find them, and neither shall weakness.” Prim thought a moment, and came upon a realization, for she was wise, obedient, and an excellent daughter. “If a man built a tower this way, he would quickly starve, no matter how strong he became.” The sage was even more delighted. “Yes,” he said, “There is a better way, and I will teach it to you: Once you have built your tower, you must deconstruct it, brick by brick, stone by stone. You must do it meticulously and carefully, so that while you leave no physical trace of it remaining, your tower is still built in your mind and your heart, ready to spring anew at a moment’s notice. You can enjoy the fresh air, and eat fine meals, and enjoy a good drink with your friends, but all the while your tower remains standing. You are both prisoner and warden. This is the hardest way, but the strongest.” Prim saw the wisdom in this, and quickly made to return to the road, but the sage stopped her before she left. “As you to your earlier remark,” the sage said, “The man who builds his tower but cannot take it apart again – that man is at the pinnacle of his strength. But that man will surely perish.” – Prim Masters the Road
Tom Parkinson-Morgan (Kill 6 Billion Demons, Book 1)
Because,' he said, 'I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you, especially when you are near me, as now; it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situation in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land, come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapped; and the nI've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, you'd forget me.' 'That I never would, sir; you know -,' impossible to proceed. [...] The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway and asserting a right to predominate - to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last; yes, and to speak. 'I grieve to leave Thornfield; I love Thornfield; I love it, because I have lived in it a full and delightful life, momentarily at least. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright, and energetic, and high. I have talked, face to face, with what I reverence; with what I delight in, with an origin, a vigorous, and expanded mind. I have known you, Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you forever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death.' 'Where do you see the necessity?' he asked, suddenly. 'Where? You, sir, have placed it before me.' 'In what shape?' 'In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman, your bride.' 'My bride! What bride? I have no bride!' 'But you will have.' 'Yes; I will! I will!' He set his teeth. 'Then I must go; you have said it yourself.' 'No; you must stay! I swear it, and the oath shall be kept.' 'I tell you I must go!' I retorted, roused to something like passion. 'Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automation? a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! I have as much soul as you, and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty, and much wealth, I should have made it hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh; it is my spirit that addresses your spirits; just as if both had passed through the grace, and we stood at God's feel, equal - as we are!' 'As we are!' repeated Mr. Rochester - 'so,' he added, including me in his arms, gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips; 'so, Jane!' 'Yes, so, sir,' I rejoined; 'and yet not so; for you are a married man, or as good as a married man, and we'd to one inferior to you - to one with whom you have no sympathy - whom I do not believe you truly love; for I have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would scorn such a union; therefore I am better than you - let me go!' 'Where, Jane? to Ireland?' 'Yes - to Ireland. I have spoke my mind, and can go anywhere now.' 'Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild, frantic bird that is tending its own plumage in its desperation.' 'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.' Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him. 'And your will shall decide your destiny,' he said; 'I offer you my hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions.' 'You play a farce, which I merely taught at.' 'I ask you to pass through life at my side - to be my second self, and best earthly companion.' [...] 'Do you doubt me, Jane?' 'Entirely.' 'You have no faith in me?' 'Not a whit.
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
In my thirty years as a judge I have only ever pronounced in favour of the death penalty." "And don't you think," I asked him, "that you might have some reason to reproach yourself for the deaths of these people – as you would with a murder?" "Goodness!" he said. "Must we dwell on this?" "But," I told him, "this is nonetheless what polite society would call an absolute horror." "Oh," he replied, "one must learn to accept the horror of anything that makes one hard, and for one very simple reason – which is that this thing, however appalling you would like to think it might be, is no longer horrifying for you the moment it makes you come; it only remains so therefore in other people's eyes, but who can tell me that the opinions of others – which are almost always wrong on every score – are not equally so on this one? Nothing," he continued, "is fundamentally good or fundamentally bad – everything is simply relative to our customs, opinions and prejudices. Once this point is established, it is entirely possible that something perfectly indifferent in its own right might nevertheless seem contemptible in your eyes and yet most delightful in mine; and the moment I develop a liking for it – as difficult as it may be to determine its true worth – the moment it amuses me, would I not be mad to deprive myself of it just because you disapprove?
Marquis de Sade (The 120 Days of Sodom)
Beatriz breathed in the sweet aromas that lately appealed to her. Those at the forefront were of various honeys in the wooden honey pots anchoring the tablecloth: lavender, orange blossom, and eucalyptus. But the room was a cornucopia of visual and olfactory treats. Marcona almonds were roasting in Reuben's old wood oven, and from the kitchen downstairs wafted scents of all the spices they would be offering their customers fresh over the counter in cloth bags: cinnamon stalks, cloves, anise, ground ginger, juniper berries, finely grated nutmeg. Nora and Beatriz packaged all the spices themselves. They would also offer ribbon-tied bags of Phillip's tea creations served in the café: loose leaves of lemon verbena, dried pennyroyal, black tea with vanilla. All around the room, on the floor, shelves, and counters, were baskets and baskets and baskets of irresistible delights: jars of marmalades and honeys and pure, dark, sugarless chocolate pieces ready to melt with milk at home for the richest hot chocolate. Customers could even buy jars of chocolate shavings, to sprinkle over warmed pears and whipped cream, or over the whipped cream on their hot chocolates. They sold truffles white and dark, with or without rum, biscuits with every variation of nuts and spices, bars small or large of their own chocolate, and dried fruits dipped in chocolate.
Karen Weinreb (The Summer Kitchen)
In a village quaint and bright, Lived a chef with great delight. Every morn, with break of day, He’d cook his meals, then he’d say “Did you eat?” His voice so clear, Echoed far and echoed near. Neighbors smiled, children played, In his care, their hearts were laid. One fine day, a stranger came, Hungry, tired, seeking fame. “Teach me, chef, your art so fine, I long to make my dishes shine.” With a nod and knowing glance, The chef began the culinary dance. “First, you learn to truly care, For food is love, you must declare.” Days turned weeks, the lessons flew, The stranger learned and friendships grew. But fame and glory filled his mind, Leaving care and love behind. He opened a place, grand and vast, But love for food, a thing of the past. “Did you eat?” He’d never ask, Focused solely on his task. DID YOU EAT? Customers came, then soon they went, For something vital had been spent. Food was fine, but heart was cold, A lesson learned, a tale retold. Back he went, with heavy heart, To the chef who’d played his part. “Teach me now, what I have missed, For love and care, I have dismissed.” The chef then smiled, wise and kind, “To care for others, open your mind. The food you make, with love instill, And hearts you’ll nourish, a void you’ll fill.” “Did you eat?” He asked anew, And in that question, wisdom true. For food with love is more than treat, It’s a bond, a joy, a life complete. So here’s the tale, both light and deep, A lesson strong for all to keep. In every meal, in every greet, Ask with love, “Did you eat?
Kindly NYC (Did You Eat? : A Global Journey Through Food, Care, and Connection)
Did You Eat?" In a village quaint and bright, Lived a chef with great delight. Every morn, with break of day, He’d cook his meals, then he’d say “Did you eat?” His voice so clear, Echoed far and echoed near. Neighbors smiled, children played, In his care, their hearts were laid. One fine day, a stranger came, Hungry, tired, seeking fame. “Teach me, chef, your art so fine, I long to make my dishes shine.” With a nod and knowing glance, The chef began the culinary dance. “First, you learn to truly care, For food is love, you must declare.” Days turned weeks, the lessons flew, The stranger learned and friendships grew. But fame and glory filled his mind, Leaving care and love behind. He opened a place, grand and vast, But love for food, a thing of the past. “Did you eat?” He’d never ask, Focused solely on his task. Customers came, then soon they went, For something vital had been spent. Food was fine, but heart was cold, A lesson learned, a tale retold. Back he went, with heavy heart, To the chef who’d played his part. “Teach me now, what I have missed, For love and care, I have dismissed.” The chef then smiled, wise and kind, “To care for others, open your mind. The food you make, with love instill, And hearts you’ll nourish, a void you’ll fill.” “Did you eat?” He asked anew, And in that question, wisdom true. For food with love is more than treat, It’s a bond, a joy, a life complete. So here’s the tale, both light and deep, A lesson strong for all to keep. In every meal, in every greet, Ask with love, “Did you eat?
Kindly NYC (Did You Eat? : A Global Journey Through Food, Care, and Connection)
Saturday is birthday cake day. During the week, the panadería is all strong coffee and pan dulce. But on weekends, it's sprinkle cookies and pink cake. By ten or eleven this morning, we'll get the first rush of mothers picking up yellow boxes in between buying balloons and paper streamers. In the back kitchen, my father hums along with the radio as he shapes the pastry rounds of ojos de buey, the centers giving off the smell of orange and coconut. It may be so early the birds haven't even started up yet, but with enough of my mother's coffee and Mariachi Los Camperos, my father is as awake as if it were afternoon. While he fills the bakery cases, my mother does the delicate work of hollowing out the piñata cakes, and when her back is turned, I rake my fingers through the sprinkle canisters. During open hours, most of my work is filling bakery boxes and ringing up customers (when it's busy) or washing dishes and windexing the glass cases (when it's not). But on birthday cake days, we're busy enough that I get to slide sheet cakes from the oven and cover them in pink frosting and tiny round nonpareils, like they're giant circus-animal cookies. I get to press hundreds-and-thousands into the galletas de grajea, the round, rainbow-sprinkle-covered cookies that were my favorite when I was five. My mother finishes hollowing two cake halves, fills them with candy- green, yellow, and pink this time- and puts them back together. Her piñatas are half our Saturday cake orders, both birthday girls and grandfathers delighting at the moment of seeing M&M's or gummy worms spill out. She covers them with sugar-paste ruffles or coconut to look like the tiny paper flags on a piñata, or frosting and a million rainbow sprinkles.
Anna-Marie McLemore (Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love)
I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield - I love it, because I have lived in it a full and delightful life, - momentarily at least. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright and energetic, and high. I have talked, face to face, with what I reverence: with what I delight in, - with an original, a vigorous, an expanded mind. I have know you, Mr Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death.” “Where do you see the necessity?” He asked, suddenly. “Where? You, sir, have placed it before me.” “In what shape?” “In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble an beautiful woman, - your bride.” “My bride! What bride? I have no bride!” “But you will have.” “Yes;- I will - I will!” He set his teeth. “Then I must go - you have said it yourself.” “No: you must stay! I swear it - and the oath shall be kept.” “I tell you I must go!” I retorted, roused to something like passion. “Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton? - a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh - it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal, - as we are!” “As we are!” Repeated Mr Rochester - “so,” he added, enclosing me in his arms, gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips: “so, Jane!
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
creation of a team of nine design-thinking coaches—“innovation catalysts”—from across Intuit who were made available to help any work group create prototypes, run experiments, and learn from customers. The process includes a “painstorm” (to determine the customer’s greatest pain point), a “sol-jam” (to generate and then winnow possible solutions), and a “code-jam” (to write code “good enough” to take to customers within two weeks). Design for Delight has enabled employees throughout Intuit to move from satisfying customers to delighting them.
Harvard Business Publishing (HBR's 10 Must Reads on Innovation (with featured article "The Discipline of Innovation," by Peter F. Drucker))
They become successful, and then decide they need to document their culture. The job falls to someone in the human resources or PR department who probably wasn’t a member of the founding team but who is expected to draft a mission statement that captures the essence of the place. The result is usually a set of corporate sayings that are full of “delighted” customers, “maximized” shareholder value, and “innovative” employees.
Eric Schmidt (How Google Works)
It was among the Parthians the custom that none was to give their children any meat in the morning before they saw the sweat on their faces, and you shall find this to be God’s usual course not to give His children the taste of His delights till they begin to sweat in seeking after them.—Richard Baxter
E.M. Bounds (The Complete Collection of E. M. Bounds on Prayer)
you've got to unlearn what you have learned.
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
What types of information and tools can you put on your site that will pull in more people from your market?
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
Your focus should include creating communities outside of your site for people to connect with you, your products, and others within the community. Ultimately, this “outside” focus will drive people back to your site.
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
Before you begin making the changes we outline in the remainder of this book, take some time to measure where you currently stand in order to track your progress and results as you implement changes.
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
what other types of information, other than product specs, would be useful to your marketplace?
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
There are two ways to create a winning strategy in an era where remarkable ideas spread virally
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
The second method for creating a winning strategy in the era of inbound marketing is to be the world's best at what you do
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
If you need further help redefining your value proposition, we recommend you read the first few chapters of Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
Unfortunately, however, pragmatist customers rarely adopt any new technology en masse. Usually these innovations are taken up first by a single niche, one that has such pressing problems it goes ahead of the herd. The rest of the herd is delighted by this eventuality because it gets a free look at how well the technology plays out without having to take any immediate risk. The niche wins—presuming the beachhead strategy is conducted correctly—by getting a state-of-the-art fix for its heretofore unsolvable problem. And the vendor wins because it gets certified by at least one segment of pragmatists that its offering is legitimately mainstream.
Geoffrey A. Moore (Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers)
Consumers want the predictable and consistent, with an occasional positive twist or added value thrown in. Psychologists who study happiness (the correct psychological/research term is subjective well-being) often talk about the importance of predictability for safety and security (the caramelized popcorn, if you will), mixed with small increments of variety to offset boredom (the prize). Unfortunately, many companies focus too much on the basic ingredients and not enough on adding that extra something that differentiates them from their competition and builds brand loyalty. Starbucks leaders, however, have made a firm commitment to creating an experience of Surprise and Delight in many areas of their business. Starbucks management seeks ways to implement subjective well-being for customers and staff—which, in turn, has a profound effect on loyalty, community, and profit.
Joseph A. Michelli (The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary)
Picking the Perfect Keywords
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
One of the most power-packed media of all is something you already have and doesn't cost you one cent. It's satisfied customers—people you've delighted in the past.
Jay Conrad Levinson (Guerrilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your SmallBusiness)
To please God alone” (soli Deo placere) was the ardent desire of this remarkable man, who lived in God velut naturaliter, “as it were naturally” (:214, 215). The “ascent to God” evolved in twelve successive “degrees of humility” (on these, cf Heufelder 1983:51–150), and the purpose of his Rule (as formulated by Benedict himself in chapter 7) was to help the monk arrive at that love of God which, being perfect, casts out fear; whereby he shall begin to keep, without labor, and as it were naturally and by custom, all those precepts which he had hitherto observed through fear: no longer through dread of hell, but for the love of Christ, and of a good habit and a delight in virtue.
David J. Bosch (Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission)
When hiring new marketers, use the DARC criteria: Digital Citizen, Analytical, web Reach, and Content creation.
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
What kind of experience do you want to deliver to your customers? Starbucks wanted to bring the Italian coffee-drinking ritual to customers in the USA and around the world. How do you want to stand out by offering a better experience to your customers? What’s the experience they want to have in every interaction with your brand? Can you craft an experience around how your customers want to feel? Do they want to be delighted, nurtured, listened to, pampered, or something else? How are you going to get them there? How does your customer experience differentiate you from your competitors? Instagram’s simplicity and the fact that social sharing was built into the user interface offered users a different level of engagement with the app than that provided by other photo-sharing apps. How does experiencing your brand, from the first point of contact to the last, make your customers feel? How could you make that experience something that your customers can’t wait to share? Dollar Shave Club customers feel savvy and they want to share the discovery of the secret with their friends.
Bernadette Jiwa (The Fortune Cookie Principle: The 20 Keys to a Great Brand Story and Why Your Business Needs One)
Sure, not everyone who posts on your Facebook wall or tweets about you has as much sway or trendsetting ability as some celebrities, but they certainly can spread the word on your behalf—easily and quickly—especially if you thank and encourage them. (Some users probably have more online influence than some so-called celebrities too!)
Dave Kerpen (Likeable Social Media, Revised and Expanded: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Amazing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,)
The do-not-delete (DND) rule states that unless a comment is obscene, profane, or bigoted, or it contains someone’s personal and private information, it should never be deleted from a social network site. It might be best to illustrate the wisdom of the DND rule by first playing out a scenario in which you don’t follow it.
Dave Kerpen (Likeable Social Media, Revised and Expanded: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Amazing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,)
When Derek Sivers first built his business CDbaby.com, he set up a standard confirmation email to let customers know their order had been shipped. After a few months, Derek felt that this email wasn’t aligned with his mission—to make people smile. So he sat down and wrote a better one. Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed on a satin pillow. A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing. Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy. We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Friday, June 6th. I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!! —Derek Sivers, Anything You Want The result wasn’t just delighted customers. That one email brought thousands of new customers to CD Baby. The people who got it couldn’t help sharing it with their friends. Try Googling “private CD Baby jet”; you’ll find over 900,000 search results to date. Derek’s email has been cited by business blogs the world over as an example of how to authentically put your words to work for your business.
Bernadette Jiwa (The Fortune Cookie Principle: The 20 Keys to a Great Brand Story and Why Your Business Needs One)
If you want to grow a social presence, you have to take the time and energy to attract the low-hanging fruit: your current customers and other people who know you. From there, you’ll gain other fans and followers who are likely to eventually buy from you. But you have to start with your current customers.
Dave Kerpen (Likeable Social Media, Revised and Expanded: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Amazing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,)
THE ROAD TO LIKEABLE SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS IS PAVED BY YOUR CURRENT CUSTOMERS
Dave Kerpen (Likeable Social Media, Revised and Expanded: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Amazing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,)
Why would you possibly make a decision about a doctor, an attorney, a mechanic, or any important product or service for that matter based on advertising or Google search placement
Dave Kerpen (Likeable Social Media, Revised and Expanded: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Amazing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,)
Enterprises that use design thinking and user experience (UX) design strategically to delight customers at each step of their interaction with the organization have thrived: research shows companies which apply UX design in this way experience faster growth and higher revenues.2
Jez Humble (Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale (Lean (O'Reilly)))
Izaka contains three different restaurants in it. Mezze Mare serves its customers fabulous seafood dishes of the Mediterranean cuisine; The Midd serves delicious kebabs of Turkey and Hitode serves the best sushi that you can eat in Istanbul. Thanks all of our master chiefs for preparing all recipies with extreme care for the health and the cullinary delight of our customers.
izakaistanbul
The will of God comes from the heart of God (Ps. 33:11), and He delights to make it known to His children when He knows they are humble and willing to obey. We don’t seek God’s will like customers who look at options but like servants who listen for orders.
Warren W. Wiersbe (Be Strong (Joshua): Putting God's Power to Work in Your Life (The BE Series Commentary))
If you have your target keywords in the URL itself, you'll have a higher chance of getting anchor text with those keywords when people link to your page.
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
typical in-store receipt (read: not at all delightful). Because confirmation emails are triggered by the user’s actions, your customers are expecting something – which means they open, notice and engage with them.
Anonymous
Step 3: Reward Customers in Purchase Confirmations to Create a Reciprocal Relationship When existing customers repurchase, they save retailers the cost of acquiring a new customer, yet online retailers focus their marketing dollars on acquiring new customers rather than delighting existing ones. The purchase confirmation email is a key opportunity to drive repeat purchases because its the first impression for a customer of how they’ll be treated in the new post-purchase relationship.
Anonymous
In God we trust; all others bring data. —Dr. W. Edwards Deming
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
LEADERSHIP | Intuit’s CEO on Building a Design-Driven Company Brad Smith | 222 words Although 46 similar products were on the market when Intuit launched Quicken, in 1983, it immediately became the market leader in personal finance software and has held that position for three decades. That’s because Quicken was so well designed that using it is intuitive. But by the time Smith became CEO, in 2008, the company had become overly focused on adding incremental features that delivered ease of use but not delight. What was missing was an emotional connection with customers. He and his team set out to integrate design thinking into every part of Intuit. They changed the layout of the office, reduced the number of cubes, and added more collaboration spaces and places for impromptu work. They increased the number of designers by nearly 600% and now hold quarterly design conferences. They bring in people who have created exceptionally designed products, such as the Nest thermostat and the Kayak travel website, to share insights with Intuit employees. The company acquired one start-up, called Mint, and collaborates with another, called ZenPayroll, to improve customer experience. Although most people don’t think of financial software as a category driven by emotion or design, Smith writes, Intuit’s D4D (“design for delight”) program has paid off. For example, its SnapTax app, inspired by consumers’ migration to smartphones, led one user to write, “I want this app to have my babies.
Anonymous
You can increase conversion rates and return on investment (ROI) by several times by making PPC landing pages extremely relevant.
Brian Halligan (Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online)
better customer experience, like trade show booths, big teams, and splashy marketing campaigns. Amazon Music and Prime Video are examples of how we kept our investment manageable for many years by being frugal: keeping the team small, staying focused on improving the customer experience, limiting our marketing spend, and managing the P&L carefully. Once we had a clear product plan and vision for how these products could become billion-dollar businesses that would delight tens, even hundreds of millions of consumers, we invested big. Patience and carefully managed investment over many years can pay off greatly. Invention
Colin Bryar (Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon)
The NPI process was deflating for morale. But figuring out how to “boost morale” is not Amazonian. Other companies have morale-boosting projects and groups with names like “Fun Club” and “Culture Committee.” They view morale as a problem to be solved by company-sponsored entertainment and social interaction. Amazon’s approach to morale was to attract world-class talent and create an environment in which they had maximum latitude to invent and build things to delight customers—and you can’t do that if every quarter some faceless process like NPI smites your best ideas. In chapter six, we discuss Amazon’s belief that focusing on controllable input metrics instead of output metrics drives meaningful growth. Morale is, in a sense, an output metric, whereas freedom to invent and build is an input metric. If you clear the impediment to building, morale takes care of itself.
Colin Bryar (Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon)
If we are delighting customers, eliminating unnecessary costs and improving our products and services, we gain strength ... . On a daily basis, the effects are imperceptible; cumulatively, though, their consequences are enormous. When our long-term competitive position improves as a result of these almost unnoticeable actions, we describe the phenomenon as “widening the moat.
Edward Chancellor (Capital Returns: Investing Through the Capital Cycle: A Money Manager’s Reports 2002-15)
Large fountain glasses arrived at our table, layered with sweet beans, caramelized saba bananas, jackfruit, palm fruit, nata de coco, and strips of macapuno topped with shaved ice, evaporated milk, a slice of leche flan, a healthy scoop of ube halaya, and a scattering of pinipig, the toasted glutinous rice adding a nice bit of crunch. This frosty rainbow confection raised my spirits every time I saw it, and both Sana and I pulled out our phones to take pictures of the dish. She laughed. "This is almost too pretty to eat, so I wanted to document its loveliness before digging in." "This is for the restaurant's social media pages. My grandmother only prepares this dish in the summer, so I need to remind our customers to come while it lasts." "How do we go about this?" Rob asked, looking at his rapidly melting treat in trepidation. "Up to you. You can mix everything together like the name says so that you get a bit of everything in each bite. Or you can tackle it layer by layer. I'm a mixing girl, but you better figure it out fast or you're going to be eating dessert soup." We all dug in, each snowy bite punishing my teeth making me shiver in delight. I loved the interplay of textures---the firmness of the beans versus the softness of the banana and jackfruit mingling with the chewiness of the palm fruit, nata de coco, and macapuno. The fluffy texture of the shaved ice soaked through with evaporated milk, with the silky smoothness of the leche flan matched against the creaminess of the ube halaya and crispiness of the pinipig. A texture eater's (and sweet tooth's) paradise. "This is so strange," Valerie said. "I never would've thought of putting all these things together, especially not in a dessert. But it works. I mean, I don't love the beans, but they're certainly interesting. And what are these yellow strips?" "Jackfruit. When ripe, they're yellow and very sweet and fragrant, so they make a nice addition to lots of Filipino desserts. They were also in the turon I brought to the meeting earlier. Unripe jackfruit is green and used in vegetarian recipes, usually.
Mia P. Manansala (Homicide and Halo-Halo (Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery, #2))
Many companies have the “business people” tell the “technical people” what to build. There’s little discussion back and forth, and the teams stay in their own lanes. Amazon is not like this at all. It’s everyone’s job to obsess over customers and think of inventive ways to delight them.
Colin Bryar (Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon)
We offer an extensive range of top notch treatments that help with whatever issues you may be experiencing in your life. We understand that reiki is almost completely unexplored by the general public so we ensure to take our time with our customers to make sure the feel extremely comfortable. The flexibility that we operate with allows for you to get in contact with us whenever you need, we are always open for new bookings and would be delighted to speak over the phone or via our contact form.
Sunshine Coast Reiki Heal
First, Day 1 is representative of all the leadership principles that have helped make Amazon what it is today. It is the anchor for acknowledging and remembering their beginning values and their dogged focus on serving the needs of customers and even “delighting” customers. Second, Day 1 is a mindset, not a list of steps or strategies. It is the mentality through which all decisions are made. It is designed to keep everyone in the company focused on doing what is right in each situation, not just what is possible given Amazon’s size and influence. Because, like a child’s tower of building blocks, if the foundation isn’t stable, the tower will come tumbling down. And then it’s Day 2. It bears repeating: “Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.” —Bezos (2016 Letter) On Day 1, there are few—if any—things more important than customers.
Steve Anderson (The Bezos Letters: 14 Principles to Grow Your Business Like Amazon)
Jana Ann Bridal Couture | Bridal Shop in San Diego Are you a bride-to-be getting jitters for your dress? Have you been dealing with a bride going bridezilla? If you have been on the search for the best San Diego bridal shop have to offer, welcome aboard Jana Ann Bridal Couture. We offer bridal dresses that please even the pickiest of brides. That’s because our bridal dresses are made-to-order, which allows you to incorporate any features and design elements you desire. We understand that there’s nothing more devastating than finding your perfect dress that’s missing one element. From tulle to lace, rhinestones to feathers, help us help you with your bridal dress dreams. You’ll always be delighted with a Jana Ann bridal dress because our dresses center around you. Come browse our selection of bridal dresses in San Diego that can be customized to your liking. Take some to shed the stress off your shoulders hoping to stumble across the perfect dress. Brides can spend hours trying on dresses, usually leaving empty-handed and disappointed. We understand that it’s a flawed process that can end up causing unnecessary pre-wedding stress. Our dresses are designed especially for you, so you don’t have to luck out on finding a dress that suits you. Jana Ann Bridal Couture gets you that perfect bridal dress without unnecessary bridal stress. Are you ready to bring your dream dress to life? We’d love to do that for our lovely brides! Call us: (619) 649-2439 #San_Diego_Wedding_Dresses #San_Diego_Bridal_Shops #Bridal_Shops_San_Diego #San_Diego_Bridal_Boutique #Custom_Wedding_Dresses_San_Diego #Plus_Size_Wedding_Dresses #Beach_Wedding_Dresses #Simple_Wedding_Dresses #San_Diego_Bridal_Shops #Bridal_Shops_near_me #Wedding_Dresses_San_Diego #Wedding_Dresses_near_me #San_Diego_Bridal_Boutique #Bridal_Boutique_near_me #San_Diego_Wedding_Shop #Wedding_shop_near_me #San_Diego_Bridal_Stores #Bridal_Stores_near_me
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Applying a value lens to stakeholder capitalism, two ideas strike me as particularly important. First, business creates substantial value for customers, employees, and suppliers even if its only goal is to maximize financial returns. Think of all the stories in this book—Best Buy, Apple, Michelin, Quest, Intel, Tommy Hilfiger, and many more. Every one of them is testament to the ability of business to create significant customer delight, employee satisfaction, and supplier surplus. Competition is our best assurance that companies continue to innovate in service to these stakeholders. Second,
Felix Oberholzer-Gee (Better, Simpler Strategy: A Value-Based Guide to Exceptional Performance)
Jana Ann Bridal Couture Bridal Dresses San Diego Are you a bride-to-be getting jitters for your dress? Have you been dealing with a bride going bridezilla? If you have been on the search for the best San Diego bridal shop has to offer, welcome aboard Jana Ann Bridal Couture. We offer bridal dresses that please even the pickiest of brides. That’s because our bridal dresses are made-to-order, which allows you to incorporate any features and design elements you desire. We understand that there’s nothing more devastating than finding your perfect dress that’s missing one element. From tulle to lace, rhinestones to feathers, help us help you with your bridal dress dreams. You’ll always be delighted with a Jana Ann bridal dress because our dresses center around you. Come browse our selection of bridal dresses in San Diego that can be customized to your liking. Take some to shed the stress off your shoulders hoping to stumble across the perfect dress. Brides can spend hours trying on dresses, usually leaving empty-handed and disappointed. We understand that it’s a flawed process that can end up causing unnecessary pre-wedding stress. Our dresses are designed especially for you, so you don’t have to luck out on finding a dress that suits you. Jana Ann Bridal Couture gets you that perfect bridal dress without unnecessary bridal stress. Are you ready to bring your dream dress to life? We’d love to do that for our lovely brides! Call us: (619) 649-2439 #San_Diego_Wedding_Dresses #Bridal_Shops_San_Diego #San_Diego_Bridal_Boutique #Custom_Wedding_Dresses_San Diego #Plus_Size_Wedding_Dresses_San_Diego #Beach_Wedding_Dresses_San_Diego #Bridal_Stores_San_Diego #Simple Wedding_Dresses_San_Diego #Wedding_Shops_San_Diego #San_Diego_Bridal_Shops
Jana Ann Couture Bridal
Let your competitors do cheap and efficient marketing while yours entertains, delights, inspires, and wows.
Allan Dib (The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, and Stand Out from the Crowd)
MAPLE RIDGE CONCRETE AND PAVING Maple Ridge Concrete & Paving has spent many years refining our concrete and paving services, and we are now delighted to offer our services to residential properties. We have helped many clients in the installation of their brand new paved surfaces such as driveways, patios, and parking lots, as well as professionally restoring varying levels of damaged areas. We have worked with a broad range of customers and strive to provide the best quality services to each and every one of them. You can rely on us to provide you with stunning, durable, and well-fashioned paved areas- as a reputable paving company serving the Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley region. We value our clients above all else, so please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns, whether before, during, or after our service. Concrete Driveways A concrete driveway is one of the most cost-effective ways to restore or remodel your driveway. If installed by our concrete contractors, utilizing a range of texture, color, and artificial finish choices, a concrete patio or driveway can add beauty and elegance to your home. Asphalt Driveways Asphalt is the quickest material for paving your driveway since it dries quickly and can often be used the next day with the help of a professional paving contractor. It's also made up of recycled materials, thus, it's an eco - friendly option. Factors to Consider in a Driveway Choosing whether to use concrete or choosing an asphalt driveway is determined by your preferences and circumstances including: energy efficiency, cost savings, or avoiding costly maintenance. Examine these variables before planning a new driveway to decide which one is most suitable for you. Cost and Long-Term Investment Look at the long-term investment along with the installation price to know which one is suited to park your vehicles. Consider each material's long-term investment as well as the installation cost to determine which one can enhance the curb appeal of your property while also providing the additional space you require. You should work with a reputable concrete installer who knows how to professionally build a driveway if you want it to outlast. Aesthetic and Design A new driveway can improve your home's aesthetic appeal while also complementing your design options. The design of your driveway will be influenced by the color and architectural style of your property. Examine your house from the exterior to see which colors, styles, and features would best complement the overall concept of your living area. If you're planning to sell your property in the future, consider what prospective buyers want in a driveway and incorporate that into the design, and let concrete contractors like us handle all the work for you. Eco-Friendliness To feel confident in your investment, consider creating an eco-friendly driveway to encourage a healthier environment. Lower energy consumption, use of renewable resources, dedication to enhancing or sustaining the local water quality, and manufacturing that produces fewer carbon emissions are just some characteristics to look for when determining whether a material is environmentally friendly and sustainable. Our concrete and cement contractors at Maple Ridge Concrete and Paving can help you choose eco-friendly materials for your driveways.
Maple Ridge COncrete and Paving
To make smart, fast decisions, stay nimble, innovate and invent and focus on delighting customers.
John Rossman (The Amazon Way: Amazon's 14 Leadership Principles)
BE STRATEGIC, NOT REACTIVE. Often, companies will mistake invention for innovation. They are not the same thing. This common mistake can lead to shallow ideation, one-dimensional product or service ideas, and undifferentiated engagement with your customers. Look beyond products to consider new business models that integrate greater purpose and deliver more robust experiences that delight customers.
Rohit Bhargava (Non Obvious Megatrends: How to See What Others Miss and Predict the Future (Non-Obvious Trends Series))
Julia pulled out the lemon sponge cake and probed it with the end of a knife, delighted by how perfectly cooked it was. She removed it from the tray and set it on a cooling rack so it would be ready for the freshly made lemon buttercream icing. Julia had been working on the recipe for her new lemon sponge cake for the best part of the week, and she was sure she had found the right balance between tangy and sweet with her latest batch. Even if she approved of the cake, it wouldn’t make its way onto her café’s menu until her customers had taken their turns sampling it.
Agatha Frost (Pancakes and Corpses (Peridale Cafe Mystery #1))
Road Haugs Moving & Storage serves the entire state of North Carolina. At Road Haugs we are committed to excellence and 100% customer satisfaction. Based in Charlotte, NC, we are delighted to be North Carolina's #1 moving company. We offer top-quality commercial and residential moving services and pride ourselves on being a leader in moving innovations. Call Road Haugs Moving & Storage today and see what excellent service we can provide to you.
Road Haugs Moving and Storage
At the street level, Sugar Fair welcomed customers into a bright, child-like fantasy. The architecturally designed enchanted forest was awash in jewel tones, and gorgeous smells, and the waterfall of free-flowing chocolate. But it was the Dark Forest downstairs that had proved an unexpected money-spinner, an income stream that had helped keep them afloat through the precarious first year. Four nights a week, through a haze of purple smoke and bubbling cauldrons, Sylvie taught pre-booked groups how to make concoctions that would tease the senses, delight the mind... and knock people flat on their arse if they weren't careful. High percentage of alcohol. It was a mixology class with a lot of tricks and pyrotechnics. It had been Jay's idea to get a liquor license. "Pleasures of the mouth," he'd said at the time. "The holy trinity--- chocolate, coffee, and booze." With even her weekends completely blocked out, Sylvie had almost made a crack about forfeiting certain other pleasures of the mouth, but Jay had inherited a puritanical streak from his mother. Both their mouths looked like dried cranberries if someone made a sex joke. The sensuous, moody haven in the basement was a counterbalance to the carefully manufactured atmosphere upstairs. There were, after all, reasons to shy away from relentless cheer. Perhaps someone had just been through a breakup, or a family reunion. A really distressing haircut. Maybe they'd logged on to Twitter and realized half the population were a bunch of pricks. Or maybe the'd picked up the Metropolitan News and found Dominic De Vere indirectly thrashing their entire business aesthetic in a major London daily. Whatever the reason--- feeling a little stressed? A bit peeved? Annoyed as fuck? Welcome to the Dark Forest. Through the bakery, turn left, down the stairs.
Lucy Parker (Battle Royal (Palace Insiders, #1))