I just finished the book Creating Customer Evangelists by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba and found dozens of great ideas to build my ideal firm. In the book, the authors profile several companies that have created amazing "buzz" from extremely satisfied "customer evangelists." The companies profiled included Krispy-Kreme, Build-a-Bear Workshops, and Southwest Airlines. Each company was held out by the authors as an example of a good business made great through fervent customer support and word-of-mouth advertising. A singular focus on the customer experience (and not on stock price, shareholder value, or even profits) differentiated these companies from their competitors.

Th first step in creating avid customers is to learn what those customers want. Huba and McConnell set out ten golden rules for learning -- and valuing -- customer feedback:

1. Believe that customers possess good ideas.2. Gather customer feedback at every opportunity.3. Focus on continual improvement.4. Actively solicit good and bad feedback.5. Don't spend vast sums of money doing it.6. Seek real-time feedback.7. Make it easy for customers to provide their feedback.8. Leverage technology to aid your efforts.9. Share customer feedback throughout the organization.10. Use input to make changes -- and communicate changes back to customers.

I've been meeting individually with my best clients for the past month to learn what I can do to make my services more appealing to them. Now I have to identify and meet with my unhappy clients and learn how I screwed up my relationship with them (and how to keep it from happening again). I'm also beginning a Customer Advisory Board (another of the authors' great ideas) by asking my best clients to serve on a sort of "board of directors" for my firm and to help me learn to become indispensible to them.

Visit McConnell's and Huba's weblog Church of the Customer for a daily dose of their wisdom and insight.