Maybe the Place to Start is…Empathy – (Customer Service 101)

…design should be seen instead as a fundamental business discipline that can produce insanely loyal customers and fat, chunky margins.
Great design is less about genius than empathy—and it’s often the tiniest things that make the biggest difference to consumers.
  First, what are the thoughtless little ways we irritate customers and what can we do to change that? And second, what are the small, unexpected delights we could deliver to our customers at virtually no additional cost?
Gary Hamel:  What Matters Now:  How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation

Empathy
The ability to understand and share the feelings of another

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This is a short and simple post.  Make things easy for your customers.  Give them no hassles…

Don’t do anything to irritate them.  If you have a web site, and they can’t figure out how to get to the information or action they need really, really easily, you need to make it easier, more convenient.

If you are difficult to communicate with, make it easier.

If you add any irritation to any experience for your customers, stop it.

Never irritate your customer.

Have a little empathy.

Easy, convenient, no hassles, no irritations.

And, if you don’t have, and then further develop, your own capacity for empathy, maybe you should get out of the customer business.