Loved this post from 37Signals’ blog: On the front lines in the trenches.

To understand how to make your site the best it can be, you have to listen to your customers. Everyone needs to do customer support. It’s the only way to understand what your customers want, what frustrates them about your service or your website, and what delights them. Customers are teachers in disguise. You have something to learn from each one. You just have to be open to listening to what they have to say.

Everyone who joins Automattic spends their first three weeks on the job with our Happiness Team responding to customer support requests. The Happiness Team is an amazing group of people–gifted at teaching others and at doing reconnaissance to help WordPress.com users solve their problems.

Part of my role at Polldaddy is doing customer support. Everyone at Polldaddy does customer support. We wouldn’t have it any other way.