CEOs should work hard to ensure they are in touch with all the ways a company enacts customer communications and understand "the buzz" from the customer base. At Everest, we strive to make customer satisfaction, and therefore good customer communications, the responsibility of every employee. We all own it, we are empowered, and accountable. We just introduced our latest channel of customer communications, our first user conference. It's a recognized fact, one of the greatest benefits of holding a customer or user event is a venue for networking with other businesses that are the same or similar to their own. It's often appreciated as an extra service provided by a company, particularly with software products. Users are able to exchange ideas firsthand and find out how their peers are solving similar problems or building special customizations. It's a time for them to meet face-to-face with company executives and product managers to put a personality with their telephone and email experiences. It's seen as a platform to make their voice heard to company executives who have especially allocated time to listen. 
 
Our first Everest World was held in New Orleans April 22-24, and what an event it was!  It was incredibly rewarding to see our customers learning, interacting with each other, and providing feedback real-time to the Everest team.  We found ways to capture much of it, including some customer video testimonials that were volunteered by some of our attendees. In the keynote we discussed talking AT, TO, or WITH our employees to build a culture of customer responsiveness. The same is true for our customer base, with whom we believe we're building a mutual culture and synergy of purpose.  We had some fun, we worked hard to spend as much time as possible with each of our interest groups. The overwhelming feedback we've had so far is-they can't wait for the next user group meeting.  We look forward to our next event and being WITH our customers!