Was Gandhi a Marketing Consultant?
Friday May 7, 2004
Recently, I received mail from a reader asking me:
"Recently, some of my colleagues have begun to display a quotation on their cubicle walls. It is attributed to Gandhi, but I haven't been able to confirm that he actually said this, and to be honest, it just doesn't sound like Gandhi to me.
I know my colleagues are displaying this in order to demonstrate to their clients that they are happy to serve them, but I don't want to think that we're embarrassing ourselves by falsely attributing this quotation to Gandhi when I suspect it comes from some management guru's latest book or article.
Can you shed some light on this for me and let me know if the following quotation is really from Gandhi?
"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so."
My response probably surprised the reader
My Response: I am unable to verify the absolutely exact wording, but YES that is Gandhi. I can understand that most of the world associates Gandhi with a different genre. However, the way I see it, this part of his overall philosophy of 'Seva.' Loosely translated, Seva means service, as in service to humanity, service to the weak, service to the ...
Interesting eh?
"Recently, some of my colleagues have begun to display a quotation on their cubicle walls. It is attributed to Gandhi, but I haven't been able to confirm that he actually said this, and to be honest, it just doesn't sound like Gandhi to me.
I know my colleagues are displaying this in order to demonstrate to their clients that they are happy to serve them, but I don't want to think that we're embarrassing ourselves by falsely attributing this quotation to Gandhi when I suspect it comes from some management guru's latest book or article.
Can you shed some light on this for me and let me know if the following quotation is really from Gandhi?
"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so."
My response probably surprised the reader
My Response: I am unable to verify the absolutely exact wording, but YES that is Gandhi. I can understand that most of the world associates Gandhi with a different genre. However, the way I see it, this part of his overall philosophy of 'Seva.' Loosely translated, Seva means service, as in service to humanity, service to the weak, service to the ...
Interesting eh?
Comments
Yes, the quote is correct and it was said by Gandhiji. He did truly believe that serving customers are the reason for why we are here. I am a librarian and I would love for all libraries to display that quote ….so people do not hesitate to approach the desk or ask a question…. if it were not for the patrons or customers or whatever you choose to call them, we could just as well not exist.
Fantastic quote, saw it 2 years ago and always remembered it. Just happened on it again recently.
This quote from Gandhiji, is very apt to any service related organisation whether commercial or otherwise. In the modern world where many become very system orientated these words are required to be often repeated to keep the back office boys focused on theire primary objective
With great respects to gandhiji, I really think we are just kidding the words of a seen saint, who leaved as he told. Personally, I always regret to see Mahatma’s photo & statue in front of everywhere (exspecially Govt. Offices). According to me we are just adding Gandhi’s photo not his words. Really it’s shame to this generation.
Yes, he definiately said this. I saw it on the internet.
I saw this posted in a store somewhere in India, I have a photo of it somewhere.
I was born in India. Gandhi is the only Indian I respect. The rest are …
The quote is by Leon Bean, the founder of L. L. Bean.
hello William!
you are the person i was looking for
you are the first who says that the attribution is not correct,
could you please give us more details or some reference?
despite of many comments, i’m still skeptic about this quotation, and i’d like to investigate more, but search is very difficult because of the great number of agreeing comments
thank you
i also ask to the expert, Simran Khurana, to give us more details about why you are so confident in such a critical quotations, touching the name of one the most important minds and souls of world history
thank you too
kind regards to all,
syb
thank you
This is definitely attributed to Gandhi – in a speech made in South Africa in 1890. Not sure if it was the first time he said it.
This quote is that of Gandhiji’s. As far as I know, this comment was given by Gandhiji himself when he visited UCO Bank (which was Birla’s bank at the time).