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Buyers are sellers. Products are services. Markets have been turned inside out. But one thing about doing business in the new economy hasn't changed: The most fundamental goal of every company is to serve its customers. Companies may be working faster, smarter, and in more unusual ways than ever before -- but they must also work with customers better than companies did in the old economy, or there won't be any economy at all.

Customers.com, by Patricia B. Seybold (with Ronni T. Marshak), stands all the excitement about Internet commerce on its head -- by focusing on the most important URL of all: www.yourcustomers.com. As a 20-year veteran of the computer industry, as founder and CEO of the Patricia Seybold Group (a consultancy based in Boston), and as the coauthor of a series of five books on professional computing, Seybold knows as much as anyone about what it takes to develop a customer-centric organization, one that is capable of flourishing in multiple media: Web, email, pager, voice mail.

In Customers.com, she uses 16 case studies -- of such companies as Boeing, Dell, Hertz, Cisco Systems, Wells Fargo, Amazon.com, and American Airlines -- to illustrate eight core principles of e-commerce. By adhering to these principles, she argues, you can make it easy for customers to do business with you. And Seybold makes it easy for you to learn from her -- by including a practical handbook that explains how you can launch your own "customers.com" initiative.

Packed with real-world war stories that explain how to learn more about customers, how to build customer loyalty, and how to save money, Customers.com is likely to develop its own strong customer base. Here's some of what we at Fast Company took away from our 384-page experience of being Seybold's customer.

Self-service is the ultimate service.

More than anything else, customers value control over their time: They want to place an order, to check on a shipment, or to get help -- whenever they feel like it, and through any of several media: phone, Web, fax, email, even direct human contact. Giving customers many ways to get the information they want will save you money in the short term and build loyalty in the long term. Every week, for example, more than 20,000 Dell customers check the status of their order on that company's Web site, saving Dell $8 every time a customer substitutes a mouse click for a phone call.

The experience is the message.

Your brand is nothing less than the complete experience of doing business with you. It includes the experience of using your products -- but it extends beyond that point. Enhancing the customer's experience means eliminating snags and finding ways to reduce customer anxiety. For example, Amazon.com lets repeat customers buy books with just one click of the mouse. And within a few minutes of ordering, customers receive an email notification confirming their order. The process is easy, and it reduces customer anxiety -- Did my order go through? -- even before a customer has time to start worrying.

Help customers help each other.

There are people who know the answer to your customers' questions better than you do: other customers. A smart company will figure out how to let its customers talk to others with whom they have something in common. In that way, it will build an organic, self-propagating community.