How do you create a great product, make money with it, and generate legions of happy customers? The folks at 37signals have a clue:

1. Make something that’s easy to use, easy to get, and a good value for the money.
2. Entice customers to come in with a freebie and then have them pay to trade-up to premium services (AKA “freemium“).
3. Write about your process and philosophy and sell this to your customers.

At this point, the book alone has generated about $175,000 in sales in just 75 days. Not bad at all.

Technorati Tags: 37signals, Getting Real, customer service

Ask someone for their experience with a product or service and they’ll tell you, good or bad. This past week, for example, I switched my homeowner’s insurance to a different company after asking a friend about his experience with them. In some cases, opinions are offered unsolicited. The truly interesting stuff happens once the conversation moves to the Web.

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The fine staff over at AppleMatters have anted up their collective two cents on the new Mac ads. I had praised the spots for their consistent message with Apple’s brand image, that of a complete customer experience. These are advertisements, of course, which begs another question: will they help sell Macs?

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NOTE: This post was edited to reflect the true order of happenings: I set up the hosting account before I bought the domains. It was late when I wrote the original post–what can I say?

Getting your own space on the Web is simple: buy a domain name, sign up for hosting, and upload your files. Could it be any easier? The devil, it’s said, is in the details, and that’s as true in this process as any.

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As I’ve written on the About page of this blog, organizational policies are sometimes a cause of bad customer service. As a customer, your options in situations like these are limited: either accept the consequences of the bad policy and keep your mouth shut or leave angry and refuse to do business with the company (more on this in a moment). Seth Godin proposes a third alternative, one that addresses the both the customer’s frustration as well as the front-line employee’s frustration with the policy.

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