Ian Landsman is Starting From Scratch, May 10, 2006:
Your Customers MUST Come Before Everything Else
If you're in the market for a powerful and user friendly Help Desk solution, please take a look at my company's flagship product HelpSpot.I've always had a very strong customer service focus. I attribute this to the time I spent working in retail. My first jobs were all in retail and even my first job out of college.
Retail is a terrible way to make a living. The hours stink, wearing the little outfit stinks, the pay stinks. But if there's one thing they teach you in retail it's how to take care of a customer. That the customer is truly the only reason you're there, that the customer is a precious flower to be cared for, respected and nurtured.
The customer is the one thing you can least afford to put off when you start a business. Yet, I see so many articles talking about getting things done. Often recommending only checking your email in the morning and once in the afternoon. Only doing support at one set time a day.
I think this is horrible advice. See by doing that you're doing what everyone else is doing. You're providing the same mediocre service customers expect to get.
Why not be different? Why not be memorable? Why not answer emails right when they come in?
That's one of the things I try to do if it's at all possible. Most of the time I am able to respond within 10 minutes or so. Not always, but very often. Because of that my service stands out. I can't count how many times customers have responded and the first thing they note is how impressive that is.
The reason I'm thinking of this is that I had several large sales today and both mentioned the speed an quality of support as major factors in their purchase decision. I can't help but think that may not have factored so highly if support had not been faster than timely.
I say let the programming wait. Is that new class you're writing really more important than a prospective customers question? I don't think so and neither should you.
Discussion
I am all for putting customers at the first place, but what you are proposing sounds like a good way to grind the development to a halt as your inbox gets more and more busy if you are a small shop.
That new class I'm writing is probably an important part of keeping the existing customers happy, especially when you use the support model (pay for support, get upgrades without additional cost). Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that you are effectively putting prospective customers before your current, paying customers 
Created by Marcin Kaszynski on 05.10.2006 8:05 pm
Actually what I'm doing is putting requests before anything. Whether their from customers or prospective customers.
There's other ways to organize without ignoring customers. A while back I wrote up a post about what I do. Basically I've analyzed what days and times support comes in most. I then dedicate programming time to the days/times which are less busy.
I'd also suggest that if you're so busy with support that you can't get any work done then your pricing is wrong. I mean if support is filling up your entire day that implies you have a lot of customers. If you have that many customers and can't hire some help then something is wrong with your pricing because you're not making enough dough!
Created by Ian on 05.10.2006 8:05 pm
I agree with the essense of your statement, but disagree with the heading. I content that employees should come first. then customers.
Checkout "Nuts! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success". You will understand this point of view better- Make your employees your first priority. Happy employees will give you happy customers. Happy customers in turn will give you happy shareholders.
As I said, I would try to do everything you listed, but focus on facilitating my employees and myself to do these customer centric tasks.
-----
Created by TechMBA on 05.10.2006 8:05 pm