In typical 37signals fashion, the wisdom in these pages is edgy yet

Put everyone on the front lines
In the restaurant business, there's a world of difference between working in
the kitchen and dealing with customers. Cooking schools and smart
restaurateurs know it's important for both sides to understand and empathize
with each other. That's why they often have chefs work out front as waiters
for a stretch. That way, the kitchen staff can interact with customers and see
what it's actually like on the front lines.
A lot of companies have a similar front-of-house/back-of-house split.
The people who make the product work in the "kitchen" while support
handles the customers. Unfortunately, that means the product's chefs never
get to directly hear what customers are saying. Too bad. Listening to
customers is the best way to get in tune with a product's strengths and
weaknesses.
Think about the children's game Telephone. There are ten kids sitting in a
circle. A message starts and is whispered from one child to another. By the
time it gets all the way around, the message is completely distorted--to the
point where it's usually hilarious. A sentence that makes sense at first comes
out the other end as "Macaroni cantaloupe knows the future." And the more
people you have in the circle, the more distorted the message gets.
The same thing is true at your company. The more people you have
between your customers' words and the people doing the work, the more
likely it is that the message will get lost or distorted along the way.
Everyone on your team should be connected to your customers--maybe
not every day, but at least a few times throughout the year. That's the only
way your team is going to feel the hurt your customers are experiencing. It's
feeling the hurt that really motivates people to fix the problem. And the flip
side is true too: The joy of happy customers or ones who have had a
problem solved can also be wildly motivating.
So don't protect the people doing the work from customer feedback. No
one should be shielded from direct criticism.
Maybe you think you don't have time to interact with customers. Then
make time. Craigslist founder Craig Newmark still answers support e-mails
today (often within minutes). He also deletes racist comments from the

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site's discussion boards and pesters New York City Realtors who post
apartments for rent that don't exist.
*
 If he can devote this kind of attention
to customer service, you can too.

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