“Customer Service is the New Marketing” — What a zany idea.

Well, not so crazy judging by the number of people who showed up for Get Satisfaction’s first Summit yesterday. The San Francisco Weather Gods startled everyone by punching the “Rain” button that had been stuck and depressed for the last few weeks. With our eyes now opened by sunshine (and ten or twelve cups of coffee), a packed crowd sat down to see if anything innovative is going on in customer service.

Boy, is there.

At the conference, I was chatting with Kathy Badertscher, of the DIY online book publisher Blurb, and she remarked that she had taken more notes at this Summit than she’d taken at any other conference in recent memory. She’s not the only one. Here are a few of the best blog posts and comments I’ve seen so far about what went on yesterday at the “Customer Service is the New Marketing” Summit:

On the Damn, I Wish I’d Thought of That! blog, Andy Sernovitz put together not one, not two, but three lists of great ideas he heard at the conference. That’s 38 great ideas! Bravo, Andy. These are real, actionable ideas.

Brian Solis, host of the “How to Listen to the Market and How to Engage Customers Online” workshop, put together a compilation of the tools that were talked about throughout the day. These are the online Web services you can use to open your ears and eyes to the things customers and bloggers are saying about you online. If you still haven’t started using these kinds of tools, drop what you’re doing right now and get yourself set up.

Ross Mayfield gives his impressions of Robert Stephens’ tongue-in-cheek (and very laugh-out-loud) “Marketing is a Tax You Pay for Being Unremarkable” presentation, which included the history of the Geek Squad.

On the Web Strategy blog, Jeremiah Owyang puts forward his findings from the Online Community Best Practices workshop he hosted. These are things you can utilize as best practices and benefits/cost analyses as you figure out how you’re going to incorporate and grow a real community.

If you want some wonderfully detailed and business-savvy coverage, Christine Herron’s take on the Summit’s main events are where to look. She writes down nearly every percentage and statistic mentioned — very impressive.

Jon Silvers’ Blog Bites Man blog has some well-rounded thoughts on what he considered “probably the most riveting presentation” at the Summit: the speech by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. I can attest that everyone was as impressed by Tony’s humble and unassuming style as they were by his insight. “Creating the right culture is what keeps Tony up at night,” writes Silvers. “Not sales, not merchandising, not operations… culture. To address culture, everyone in the company — whether you’re in sales, service, or merchandising — everyone, gets five weeks of training. It includes immersion in the culture, core values, customer service, warehouse, and more.”

Five weeks! Now, that is impressive.

I was personally impressed that all of the speeches, panels, workshops were bursting with witty and telling observations. These are the exact same kind of interactions companies are trying to foster by marrying customer service and community. No one took themselves too seriously yesterday, but it seemed like everyone got something seriously useful out of the Summit.

Well done, community.

If you were there, thanks for attending! If you missed it, we’ll have video of the presentations posted in the coming weeks, which I’ll try to roll out as it gets edited. Flickr pics of the event are also available here.

And, of course, thanks again to our very generous sponsors, Joyent, VentureBeat, Mohr Davidow Ventures, and Web 2.0 Expo!