As I say all of the time, service is not a department nor is it something to be relegated to a call center. In the book ReWork by Jason Fried and David Hansson, the authors talk about marketing as the sum of virtually everything you do. They actually make a list of things and how they act as marketing. For example:
- Every time you answer the phone, it’s marketing.
- Every time someone uses your product, it’s marketing.
- If you build software, every error message is marketing.
Similarly, I would say service works the same way…
- When you answer the phone, it’s service…or not.
- The readability/simplicity of your invoice is service…or not.
- The ease of your self-service portal is service…or not.
- The look, feel, comprehensiveness and ease of your website is service…or not.
- Your interactions are service…or not.
Do all of the details of your business reflect a mission of serving your customers…or have you simply made service an afterthought, a department, a call center, or someone else’s job?