Name: Genius Jones
Business: Retailer
President: Daniel Kron
Location: Miami, Miami Beach
2007 revenue: $2.6 million
Strategy: Invest in customer service

This July, Daniel Kron vacationed at an eco-resort in Nicaragua. Kron, the owner of Genius Jones, a fashionable store for children's furniture, toys and clothes, chose the resort for its natural beauty -- and for its wireless Internet access.

Each night after relaxing with his family, Kron got online and spent hours answering customer e-mails. As he listened to howler monkeys screaming from the trees above, Kron tended to a woman in the Bronx who had ordered a storage unit from the Genius Jones website. The unit had arrived with shipping damage, so Kron got in touch with the manufacturer and arranged for replacement parts to be sent the next day.

Kron's late-night vacation e-mails are a measure of his commitment to customer service -- a quality, he said, that is key to his company's rapid growth in the down economy. ''If we were going to survive a downturn, we had to sit back and look at our strengths,'' Kron said.

YOU'RE SPECIAL

Customer service can be an important way for a business to distinguish itself during an economic downturn, according to Carsrud of FIU. ''It's about exceeding expectations, making people feel they're special,'' Carsrud said.

Kron founded Genius Jones in 2003 with a store in South Beach. After the first store turned a profit, he opened a second in Miami's Design District in 2005. Factoring in robust Internet sales, the company took in $2.6 million last year, and is on track for $3.5 million this year.

To Kron, good service means more than late-night e-mails.

''As we grow our revenues, we hire staff,'' he said. Kron keeps a trilingual staff (English, Spanish and Portuguese) to accommodate the city's diverse demographics. ''That's essential in Miami,'' he said.

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