That was fun. I apparently wrote approximately 4,500 words in 90 minutes. Also: my brain is now absolutely mush, so if you have anything you'd want me to add, please, find my inbox so I can get to it when my brain is not mush.
I think that's the most exhausting writing task I've ever done -- it's harder being in a CS email firehose, which is already exhausting. At least when doing CS you have macros to help, and 80% of customer service can be done without engaging more than 2% of your mental faculties.
You mentioned in one of the comments that you get a lot of business from referrals, but don't track the number of referrals in any way. Would it make sense to have some sort of rewards program, e.g. one month off for every customer someone refers to you? I don't expect that would do much for you in the (presumably most lucrative) enterprise space, so maybe it's not something that would make sense to spend time implementing, but I could imagine it working out quite well with e.g. owners of massage parlors.
Bidirectional referrals were a crashing failure for BCC, the one time I implemented it. I also don't like the interaction that makes my customers have with their friends, particularly not in a B2B context. (I mean, wouldn't it put an undesirable thought in the back of your head reading my stuff if you had to wonder every time you heard me say, e.g. "Twilio is the best thing since sliced bread", whether that was being tracked and compensated?)
P.S. A lesson I learned early in AR's career: don't call massage therapy practices "massage parlors". That is one of a couple of word choices which massage therapists are really really touchy about: http://www.massagetherapy.com/articles/index.php/article_id/...
This is something I like about message board writing; there's a feeling of time pressure to it. You have to think a little bit faster than you would writing a long-form blog post.
I think that's the most exhausting writing task I've ever done -- it's harder being in a CS email firehose, which is already exhausting. At least when doing CS you have macros to help, and 80% of customer service can be done without engaging more than 2% of your mental faculties.