Fanatics!

In an age of competitive fever and instant communication, customers have learned to expect the world. Remarkably, the great new customer-service providers are giving them more

It was a night that Glenda Stone won't soon forget. Close to midnight, the musical chiming of the pager that she keeps at her bedside woke her from a light sleep at her house in Reno, Nev. One glance at the clock, and she knew that somewhere a customer was in trouble. Stone grabbed the phone to check her voice mail. A customer had left a message. He was in a panic, his words barely decipherable. Stone returned the call at once.

"Please, sir, try to calm down," she recalls saying, as she did her best to soothe the customer. But the man roared, "Do you hear me? I don't have a door!"

Stone moved with dispatch. She dialed into the computer network of her employer, Relocation Management Resources Inc., known as RMR, whose business is arranging all the details of transporting household goods for companies that are relocating their employees. She noted that the customer, who was living out of a suitcase in a hotel room, was waiting for the rest of his worldly possessions to be hauled from the Midwest to his new apartment in the South. One problem: the apartment didn't yet have a front door.

"Don't worry," Stone told the customer. "We'll do whatever it takes to stop the move." After calming the customer down, she halted the delivery in its tracks. It was 1 a.m. Mission accomplished. Wide-awake, Stone didn't bother going back to bed. "You take a shower and go to work," she says.

Stone's workday typically starts at 5 a.m. She is one of six troubleshooters in RMR's customer-service department. Having at least one contact person on duty at all times -- days, nights, and weekends -- is a cardinal company rule. It reflects RMR's devotion to customer service as the central tenet of its business strategy, says president Bob Carbonell. But if the level of service that RMR offers is extraordinary, the company's resources are not. Its staff totals 40, and its revenues last year were just $12 million. RMR's stunning 600% growth since 1995 is in "direct relation to the reputation we have for being fanatical," says Carbonell.

Welcome to the new world of fanatical customer service, where even small companies never sleep and no request is too ridiculous. That intensity is evident among cutting-edge companies, such as RMR, and reinforced by a chorus of business consultants. Patricia Seybold, CEO of a Boston-based firm that bears her name, is one such consultant. In her new book, The Customer Revolution, Seybold writes about businesses that are obsessed with every facet of customer service.

In the new world of fanatical customer service, even small companies never sleep and no request is too ridiculous. That intensity is evident among cutting-edge companies.

These days new buzzwords -- such as tier zero, which refers to a customer-service system that's so proactive that it anticipates a customer's every need -- suggest that views of customer service are in flux. Companies in the vanguard are using the Internet and other technologies to further their customer-service mission. One of them, FultonStreet.com, an online retail fish market based in Westbury, N.Y., is no jumbo corporation. Yet with just $2.7 million in sales, it maintains a live chat room on its Web site, zapping answers to customers' queries almost instantaneously round the clock.

ScriptSave, a company based in Tucson that manages prescription-drug-benefit programs, has even created its own currency, called Bravo Bucks (redeemable for gifts), that's awarded to employees who excel in providing customer service. "Maybe we go overboard, but this is a big part of our culture," says CEO Charlie Horn, whose picture is plastered on the $10 Bravo.

Nothing quite like Bravo Bucks is in effect at Phase II, a chain of eight personal-training centers based in Raleigh, N.C. Phase II's CEO, Wade Harris, is pumping up his customer service in other ways. The job of Phase II's trainers, who provide one-on-one attention to customers at the training centers, extends beyond the gym. If a customer, say, is on his way to an appointment and his car has a flat tire, a trainer is expected to rush to his aid. One 68-year-old woman who doesn't drive gets a lift home from Phase II with a gym employee. At monthly staff meetings Harris salutes his trainers for their acts of service. "Once new trainers see what the other trainers are doing, they look for opportunities so that they're not left out," says Harris, whose company did $1.5 million in sales last year.

Ardent dedication to customer service may prevail at Phase II, but how widespread is that spirit around the country? Although good statistics are hard to come by, studies show that customers are demanding better service in general. And there are indications that some managers are responding. Roland Rust, a marketing professor at the University of Maryland and coauthor of last year's Driving Customer Equity, says that companies increasingly see the link between customer service and "retention, loyalty, and increased sales."

Whatever its value, fanatical customer service doesn't usually come cheap. Yet examples abound of companies that have bootstrapped their way to success. FultonStreet, for example, didn't start with a policy of round-the-clock service. The company worked its way up to it. "It doesn't take money to get good customer service," says Stratis Morfogen, CEO of FultonStreet. "It takes a commitment."

The drive to revolutionize customer service at small businesses like Morfogen's has led company leaders to blaze new paths. Among the most dramatic are what you might call the 24-7 clock, the human touch, real-time feedback, and proactive pursuit. Here is a look at how six companies have zealously put one or more of the strategies into effect -- and the results they have achieved.