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Since I began writing this column over three years ago, I've consistently had readers ask me to relay their stories about a poor customer service incident they experienced.

Examples included a rude waiter who demanded a tip even though he didn't deserve it, a retail clerk who talked on her cell phone about her prior evening's party while customers waited to be served, and a cleaning service that ruined a customer's expensive dress suit and wouldn't give her a refund.

My readers wanted me to name names and admonish the offenders publicly. I haven't shared any of these stories, since I've always thought it more prudent to avoid the lawsuit that might follow.

However, I may have a better story to tell. For any business owners who want to avoid delivering poor customer service and disgruntled customers talking about you behind your back, I came up with an idea that you might find of some interest.

A little background is in order. Several years ago while working for Transamerica Insurance Group in Irvine, Calif., we found that our customer service ratings had dropped off precipitously.

That led to several emergency management meetings that I attended. Being a fairly new manager, I was surprised to see so much finger-pointing in that first meeting.

Everyone was looking for someone to blame and worse yet, no one was working as a team to come up with viable solutions. What was supposed to be a one-day meeting was quickly turning into several days.

Having also recently attended a national conference with speaker Tom Peters, management guru and author of several books on excellent leadership, I couldn't get his words out of my head.

I kept replaying his message that businesses need to listen to their customers and see their problems through their customers' eyes.

To bring our customers into our next crisis management meeting, I stopped by a novelty store the night before and had them emblazon a baseball cap with the word "CUSTOMER" on the front.

When I arrived to the meeting the next day donning my new CUSTOMER cap, all eyes were on me. I told the group that I was wearing our customer's hat, to represent their views in the meeting.

As the debate ensued, I interjected comments like, "I understand your problem, however, our customers would say that's not their problem, and that you (we) need to fix that. Our customers just care about themselves and that's all that matters."

The focus of the meeting quickly changed from problems to solutions and working as a team, not as individual departments.

At the end of the meeting, the president asked if I would stay after along with the vice president of human resources.

A few attendees told me later that they thought he kept me after to complain about my odd behavior and maybe even fire me for having showed up with the CUSTOMER cap on my head.

Instead he said he loved the idea and asked the vice president of human resources how many employees we had, so I could order CUSTOMER caps for all 800+ employees.

My novel idea changed a lot of things at that company. Employees wore their new CUSTOMER caps around the office. We added a "From Our Customer's Viewpoint" column to our employee newsletter, and created a "Customer's Bill of Rights" which became part of our national advertising campaign.

Since Tom Peter's speech had inspired me to make the CUSTOMER cap in the first place, I sent him a thank you note along with his very own cap.

True to his word about appreciating his customers, he sent me a thank you note saying he would keep his prized CUSTOMER cap on his desk along with a large box with a free set of his audio-tapes and videos (all of which was worth several hundred dollars).

Of course, my staff conjured up ideas of sending him other CUSTOMER items to see if he would send more free stuff (CUSTOMER shoe laces to "walk a mile in their shoes", CUSTOMER sunglasses "to see through their eyes", and more), but I convinced them that he would probably catch on to their ploy.

So the next time you want to improve your customer service results, I suggest that you wear your own CUSTOMER cap to better understand how they see your business and if you are meeting their needs.

As a Coldwell Banker customer service study once found, "There is a strong correlation between the quality of a company's customer service (and if they understand their customer's needs) and its long-term success."

Sacco is the VP Marketing at Kirtland Federal Credit Union and an adjunct professor at UNM Anderson School of Management and Webster University.