The headline of this post comes from a blog post by my friend Brian Carroll. His post describes a conversation he had with a client where they discussed how lead generation often ignores current customers. As a result of the discussion, one CEO decided his company would begin focusing more on current customers. He even referred to their new focus as their “Customers First Plan”.

Every business exists to help people accomplish something. If we fail at that then our business will not be sustainable. But to help our customers really get what they want, we need to know what that is.

When you ask your customers what they want, how you’re doing and how you can improve, they will give you a goldmine of information. Use this information well and your business can thrive in any economy.

I’m sick and tired of surveys. I’m tired of being interrupted at home or in my office by the caller who expects 5-10 minutes of my time as a reward for interrupting me. I am sick of being stopped mid-bite in chain restaurants to complete a 100 question survey. And I really hate being told by my car dealer: “We’d really appreciate if you could give us all 10s on the customer satisfaction survey you get.”

Customer evangelism is something big companies and marketing consultants have talked about for years. Too often though, the big companies get all the attention in this area. People assume small and mid-sized companies can’t create customer evangelists. But they’re wrong! Here are four things you can do to create customer evangelists.

1. Talk to your customers

Recently new legislation was passed that requires restaurant companies with 20 or more locations to publish calorie counts of the food they serve. They’re also required to make information on sodium, carbs and fat available at a customer’s request.

It’s about time!

In 2006, while writing an article for AllBusiness.com, I discovered Google had about 39,000 listings for the search: “Shamrock Shake”.  Today, the same search throws us 877,000 possibilities.

That’s like the city of Muskogee, Oklahoma, growing to the size of Detroit in four years.

There are over 200 videos about these fun, minty shakes. Roughly 20,000 people do a search related to them every month. There are currently about 11,000 blog posts that mention them.  And news items abound. Just this morning I was talking on the radio about it with John Hockenberry and Celeste Headlee.

(By Chip R. Bell and John R. Patterson)

It made business headlines. The most popular brand in the world focused on the experience, not just their long-famous product.

Coca-Cola introduced their “Freestyle” vending machine. Their ad copy described it as “all packaged in an innovative and interactive fountain experience.” It was designed with help from Ferrari! Step one, pick your favorite Coke beverage: Fanta, Sprite, Minute Maid lemonade, CokeZero, etc. Step two, pick your favorite flavoring. Want a raspberry Coke, a peach Fanta or a coconut flavored lemonade? There are over 100 combinations. A plastic cup is filled with ice and your special concoction.

In the last 24 hours, the ‘net has been abuzz with Google’s admission that their SEO is not as good as it could be.  Some see this as a sign that Google “ain’t all that”. Others see it as a reason to question the value of SEO. Regardless of what you make of Google’s SEO revelation, I see some lessons here for all of us.

1. Openness and honesty are cool. (And they make a difference.)

At AMA’s MPlanet conference I had the opportunity to be part of a special Blogger Q&A session with Mary Dillon, Executive VP and Global Chief Marketing Officer for McDonald’s. She talked about a strong focus on employees, reaching out to moms, and social media.

A big priority for me is making sure customers have a voice.  Many of an organization’s problems can be overcome by having better conversations with their customers.

Intuitively, we know this. But we don’t always do it. And in some ways it’s harder than in “the good old days” because of how our world has changed.

The good news is we have more tools than ever before to help us connect with our customers.

There’s a coffee shop in London where the owner sends his customers away, into the arms of his competitors. He does this knowing they’ll come back. And when they come back, they’ll probably be more loyal to his coffee shop.

His strategy is surprising but simple. He wants his customers to understand his product. He wants them to know what is available in their market, the good, the bad and the ugly. The more they sample other coffee shops, the more they will develop their own taste in coffee, the beverage and in coffee, the  experience.

I’m usually not a fan of ad campaigns. But I do like Microsoft’s new ad campaign for Windows 7, “Made by me”. It features people (average, ordinary Windows users, we are supposed to believe) who talk about how Windows 7 has the features they want, because they TOLD Microsoft they wanted them.

Of course, this is fiction advertising, so we need to take it with a massive dose of skepticism.