In a fast paced, dynamic environment like a customer facing group, there is potential for great wins and some losses as far as attracting, gaining and retaining customers go.
So who is responsible for customer service? Anyone who touches the customer, either directly or indirectly is providing a level of service. This includes the people in such varied roles as: product planners, IT staff, shippers, billing clerks, human resources and service team members. Bottom line: service is everybody’s responsibility. The service chain includes all people and functions that link up to final delivery to the customer. To find out who is in this chain begin at the end: who delivers the product to the customer? Then ask who provides a product or service to that person? Continue tracing it back to the originator. You now have your service chain.
It is critical that everyone in the service chain know the impact of their actions. Each person in the chain should focus on creating excellence in the following areas:
1. Create customer focused processes, not company focused processes. If what you are doing is done to make the internal processes work better and not...