Imagine if you knew exactly what your customers were thinking. Imagine if you knew EXACTLY what they wanted. Imagine if you could switch your TV to a channel which showed non-stop, live coverage of your customers thoughts about your brand, their concerns and their ideas on how you could do things better. Imagine if it was free and, as a company, you were encouraged to participate in the conversation. Sound satisfying?

Get Satisfaction is a community that helps companies engage their customers in dialogue. The concept is that members of the public with an idea can share their thoughts and then employees can jump online and show that your company is listening – it could be a rep from your corporate affairs department, or a guy from the mail room – it doesn’t matter. 6,873 organisations have joined the site, including some big names like Adobe, Apple, BBC and Dell. It’s early days yet, but the theory goes that rather than calling a customer support line and getting an average answer, customers can leave a comment on this website and get exactly the answer they want from the right department in a day or so. It’s a completely new approach to customer service, but it appears to be working.