• Hire caring and competent people.

• Talk to your customers. Ask them what they want. Give it to them.

• Implement systems (such as mystery shoppers and post-transaction follow-up calls) that give you a direct sense of what customers are feeling when they patronize your business.

• Adopt a "Customer Bill of Rights." Have a written document that sends a clear message to everyone in your organization that you want to deliver real customer care. Post it in a conspicuous place so customers see your pledge. Do what you promise so employees and customers alike can see that you are serious about keeping customer commitments.

• Reward employees who go the extra mile in serving customers. Take action against those who fall short.

Customers patronize businesses because they have needs meaningful enough that they are willing to pay to have them met. Entrepreneurs whose companies meet those needs better than competitors will survive, grow and generate sustainable profits.

And you can't fake that.

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G. Andrew Barfuss is affiliated with the BYU Center for Entrepreneurship. He can be reached via e-mail at cfe@byu.edu.