Because Microsoft seems to sometimes not trust customer choice they salt XP with all these little gizmos and trap doors to get people to try Microsoft stuff. But the reality is that we're downloading more players than we ever have on a worldwide basis.

I never trust an executive who tends to pass the buck. Nor would I want to deal with him as a customer or a supplier.

You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built they'll want something new.

I did work at a mall in college - I think retail/customer service is just one of the most hideous jobs in the world. So I always try to be extra nice when I go into a store. But malls are part of our culture if you watched any teen comedy in the '80s. it's clear that malls are where we live!

Vivendi will be one of the very few top communications groups of the Internet age. We will have customers all over the globe providing services through all kinds of technology.

Our business is about technology yes. But it's also about operations and customer relationships.

More than 20 years on sustained competition informed customers and the rapid growth of new technology provide the necessary environment for substantial deregulation.

I'm not a tech guy. I'm looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers normal people's eyes.

There is no point in launching technology before customers are ready to use it.

Intel's still our main partner. We have not announced anything with AMD and don't have anything planned but we're constantly being aware to make sure our customers get the best technology.

In my column series 'The Main Thing ' I often talk about how Internet technology can improve the way people communicate - both within a business and between a business and its customers and partners.

Use state-of-the-heart technology online and offline to turn listeners into viral advocates and customers into raving fans.

So if you're a customer today the same person who came in to demonstrate the technology for you and helped you architect the solution before you bought it is likely going to be leading the team to help you do the implementation.

What new technology does is create new opportunities to do a job that customers want done.

All business success rests on something labeled a sale which at least momentarily weds company and customer.

Through their own actions customers can hold companies responsible to higher standards of social responsibility. Through collective action they can leverage their dollars to combat the force of those investors who myopically pursue profits at the expense of the rest of society.

Favored Nations is a long-term commitment. Our hope is that those who are passionate about real musicianship will want to hear and own most of our albums. We will set out to attain the same direct relationship with our customers that we have with our artists.

Corporations invest in sophisticated CRM or Customer Relationship Management programs to effectively oversee their relationship with their customers at every point during the buying process.

It is so much easier to be nice to be respectful to put yourself in your customers' shoes and try to understand how you might help them before they ask for help than it is to try to mend a broken customer relationship.

Anyone working for a big company might be skeptical that a large business or even a strictly online business can form the same kind of friendly loyal relationship with customers as a local retailer. I'm saying it's already been done because I lived it.

The toughest thing about the power of trust is that it's very difficult to build and very easy to destroy. The essence of trust building is to emphasize the similarities between you and the customer.

Suppliers and especially manufacturers have market power because they have information about a product or a service that the customer does not and cannot have and does not need if he can trust the brand. This explains the profitability of brands.

When a positive exchange between a brand and customers becomes quantifiable metrics it encourages brand to provide better service customer service to do a better job and consumers to actively show their gratitude.

I guess probably in my time in politics it continued to be affirmed to me that the African-American community despite being subscription television's most valuable customers they are very underserved by cable and satellite television programming options.