"If you put a good person into a bad system the system will win. This has been proven so often that it has become a truism in the quality improvement field called the "85/15 Rule". The 85/15 Rule shows that if you trace errors or service complaints back to the root cause, about 85% of the time the fault lays in the system, processes, structure, or practices of the organization. Only about 15% of the ricochets can be traced back to someone who didn't care or wasn't conscientious enough."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Blame Management for Poor Service"

"Most organizations only talk about customer service improvement. Many managers don't understand what outstanding customer service really looks, aren't ready to turn their organization inside out to provide it, are trying to paint happy smiles on their frontline service providers, or are bolting a customer service program on the side of their organization rather than making it a part of their core strategy."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Blocks to Customer Focus"

"Part of the reason so many organizations aren't really customer-focused is because their managers don't know the difference. They're innocently ignorant. These managers don't understand what intense customer focus really looks like. And they don't fully appreciate the why and how of balancing their focus on the final or ultimate customers with their focus on external partners, such as distributors, retailers, dealers, agents, suppliers, physicians, and such."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Casual, Moderate, and Intense Levels of Customer/Partner Focus"

"A company's external customer service is only as strong as the company's internal leadership, and the culture of commitment that this leadership creates. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, our service or brand promise can't fool all of our customers all of the time. If the service messages are out of step with what's ultimately experienced by customers, marketing dollars are wasted."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Customer Satisfaction is a Reflection of Employee Satisfaction"

"Low service-performing organizations set themselves up for failure by raising expectations to attract new customers. They over-promise and under-deliver. High-performing organizations know that one secret of success is to under-promise and over-deliver. That is how they build reputations for service and keep customers coming back."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Don't Promise Too Much"

"There's no accounting for taste. Everyone forms his or her own opinion no matter how wrong we may think it is. If we're going to improve the service or quality delivered, we need to first understand how those we're serving, or producing for, perceive service or quality."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Feedback to See How Others See Me"

"The discussion of perceptions is often a thorny one as we work with individuals, teams, and organizations to improve their effectiveness. For example, we tend to define levels of service or quality through our own eyes and values. That may not be the way our customers or partners define it."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Feedback to See How Others See Me"

"Notre Dame football coach, Lou Holtz, once observed "When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done". Despite all the talk -- passionate speeches, glossy brochures, clever ads, high tech videos, convincing sales pitches, snappy slogans, strategic plans, and solemn annual reports -- the service and quality action delivered by most organizations is mediocre at best."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "How Total is Your Quality Management?"

"A major factor in our team or organization's level of innovation is our own rate of personal learning. We can't build a team or organization into something different from us. Our personal rate of change, innovation, and learning sets the pace for everyone else."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Innovation and Organizational Learning Pathways and Pitfalls (Part 1) "

"A favorite example of servant-leader innovation is the architect who waited to put the sidewalks into his new residential complex until the buildings' customers had worn paths in the grass. Then he laid the sidewalks over those paths."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Innovation and Organizational Learning Pathways and Pitfalls (Part 1) "

"High-service providers measure from the outside in. They begin by measuring what's important to customers. Next on the priority order are the needs of those serving the customers. Then attention shifts to the people producing products or serving the servers."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Measurement Traps"

"Since writing Firing on All Cylinders, the research continues to pour in. My files are bulging with study after study showing that outstanding service/quality performance is one of the key contributors to outstanding financial performance."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "More is Said Than Done About Improving Customer Service"

"Customer service, especially service that delights and astounds, is voluntary. Employees decide whether to follow strict company policy or make a little exception for a customer's unique circumstances. They can decide whether to call customers by name, or treat them as more files to be managed, more calls to be handled, more mouths to be fed."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "The View from the Front Line"

"So often the priorities we assume others have are projections of our own values and preferences. That can be deadly. We need to go beyond The Golden Rule. Instead, we need to serve people the way they — not we — want to be served. There might be a big difference. Since we're seeing customer and partner expectations from inside our organization or management team, we can't possibly have the same perspective as they do."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Three Basic Steps to Focus on Customers and Partners"

Many companies that talk passionately about being market-driven and customer-focused are overlooking one crucial ingredient - the ability to listen well. John McDonnell, former chairman and chief executive of aircraft manufacturer McDonnell Douglas Corp. of St. Louis, summed up the problem: 'We did not always listen to what our customers had to say before telling them what they wanted.'"

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Why Smart Managers Master the Art of Listening Well"

"Many companies that talk passionately about being market-driven and customer-focused are overlooking one crucial ingredient - the ability to listen well. John McDonnell, former chairman and chief executive of aircraft manufacturer McDonnell Douglas Corp. of St. Louis, summed up the problem: 'We did not always listen to what our customers had to say before telling them what they wanted.'"

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Why Smart Managers Master the Art of Listening Well"

"Many companies that talk passionately about being market-driven and customer-focused are overlooking one crucial ingredient - the ability to listen well. John McDonnell, former chairman and chief executive of aircraft manufacturer McDonnell Douglas Corp. of St. Louis, summed up the problem: 'We did not always listen to what our customers had to say before telling them what they wanted.' "

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Why Smart Managers Master the Art of Listening Well"

"Good customer listening helps organizations avoid expensive service or quality overkill. As management guru Peter Drucker pointed out, 'Nothing is so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.'"

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Why Smart Managers Master the Art of Listening Well"

"Undisciplined or unsystematic customer listening shows up most clearly in the way senior management allocates resources through budgeting. The financing of new projects, products, departments or managers is too often out of sync with customer priorities. Some studies estimate that up to 50 percent of product or service characteristics are of little or no value to customers."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Why Smart Managers Master the Art of Listening Well"