As President of Customersatisfaction.com, and as a customer service advocate and corporate consultant and coach, you'd probably expect me to say serving customers is the number one objective of a properly guided enterprise.

It's important, right up in the top few goals, but it is not number one, numero uno, top dog, or the first priority.

The most critical objective is putting additional business on the books, through marketing and selling.

If your existing customers can help you to accomplish this, by giving you a steady stream of referrals, or you can cross-sell them an added product, or up-sell the quantity they customarily buy, then great.

In a sense, servicing them equals selling them, and this can be the equivalent, in the short term of putting new customers on the books.

But really, the ultimate health of an enterprise depends on acquiring new customers. Without them, your business will stagnate.

You can only pay so much attention to customer retention, before you're throwing away money. The potential of your existing customers is limited, while a typical prospecting universe for new ones is vast.

You simply have to deploy your resources where they'll do the most good.

Don't get me wrong. You don't want to act cavalierly toward, or brazenly disregard the current client.

Appreciate that there is a sweet spot, though, a certain degree and quality of attention you can give them that will keep them aboard, and disinterested in bolting toward your competitors.

That degree of attention is far short of the rhetoric we hear about providing legendary service, surprising and delighting them, and building relationships that sound strikingly similar to what we hope to find, but seldom do, even in marriages.

Customer service and satisfaction are great, but remember, they come second!