They, after all, don't tell customers when to come in the door.

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"When our customers come in, they see, 'This is for us, '" says Ariga Kaoru, president of Ryohin Keikaku, which makes most of the items it sells in its 256 stores.

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And that can come in handy when trying to innovate and add value to customers in new ways.

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Before Dreamforce, his big annual conference in December, Benioff spends weeks laboring over his speech, but the real test is when he has ten or so customers come in to critique a rehearsal over pizza and soda.

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