Is your firm customer obsessed?

I have written before (here, here, here, and here) about how a law firm's focus should be on its customers (clients) first and profits second. In this post in the weblog A VC, the author (a New York City venture capitalist) writes about the companies he likes to invest in:

I like to say the way you start a company is you build something for not a lot of money, sell it to a few brave customers who you then develop deep relationships with, listen to them very closely, follow their lead and improve your product and develop new products around your customers feedback, and soon enough you'll have a good business that will be profitable and loved by its customers. It's not easy to do but that's the model I like best.

Elsewhere, in article in Fortune Magazine (registration may be required) talks about Jay Leno's focus on his fans:

One reason he does not use an agent anymore is that he doesn't want anyone to speak for him and possibly offend a client or fan. "That's really what this business is about," Leno says. "Contact with the customers. Because it's really feast or famine. You meet a guy on the elevator and you say hello. Well, for the rest of your career, you are the greatest guy in the world. But if you go, 'Excuse me, I'm busy,' you are just an asshole. Lyndon Johnson used to say that every handshake is worth 250 votes, and it's really true, especially in television. (From the Church of the Customer)

Lastly, in this post John Moore reviews a Harvard Business Review article, "The One Number You Need to Grow," penned by Frederick Reichheld.

Reichheld’s research indicates that there is a strong correlation between a company’s growth rate and the percentage of it’s customers who are willing to recommend the company to a friend.

Moore quotes Reichheld, "You only have to ask your customers one question: How likely is it that you would recommend [company x] to a friend or a colleague." Do you ask you clients that question?