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Staff post about: Jeff Bezos Become an Author

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“There are multiple ways to be externally focused that are very successful,” says Bezos. “You can be customer-focused or competitor-focused. Some people are internally focused, and if they reach critical mass, they can tip the whole company.”

Amazon’s early growth was driven almost completely by word of mouth. This was not a strategy on Bezos’ part; he had no money to spend on advertising and thus had little other choice. But, from that early experience, Bezos would take away one of the most important lessons he has ever learned in his business career: provide excellent customer service and satisfaction and the results will speak for themselves. Your company will be rewarded with the fact that they keep coming back for more – and they bring their friends with them.

“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that,” says Bezos. “Word of mouth is very powerful.” No one understood this power better than Bezos; in Amazon’s first month of operation, the company had already done business in almost 50 countries around the world. It was a lesson that Bezos would keep with him for the rest of his career.

“We have so many customers who treat us so well, and we have the right kind of culture that obsesses over the customer,” Bezos says. “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, and that really does matter, I think, in any business. It certainly matters online, where word of mouth is so very, very powerful.”

It is to this end that Bezos has often gone against conventional wisdom if it meant improving his customers’ experiences. For instance, where a new online tool might not have seemed profitable in the short term, and industry insiders doubted its necessity, Bezos did what he thought was best for the customer. “You have to use your judgment,” he says. “In cases like that, we say, ‘Let’s be simpleminded. We know this is a feature that’s good for customers. Let’s do it.’”

That was always the bottom line for Bezos: what was good for the customer was good for the company. “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts,” he says. “It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.”

Bezos’ wife is a writer. She spends her days working on a novel with nobody on her back to pressure her except herself; that is something Bezos considers stressful. Unlike his wife, Bezos likes the pressure of trying to create a unique and satisfying customer experience for millions of people. “I love people counting on me, and so, you know, today it’s so easy to be motivated, because we have millions of customers counting on us at Amazon.com,” says Bezos. “That’s fun.”

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