Customer Service - Should it be a part of sales (Question in Linked In)

My Answer:


1. My first contention is that there should not be a stereotype Customer Service Department in an organisation let alone it be under Sales.
2. All organisations have customer touch points for give and take of contractual promises, delivery, problem solving, help, information, relationship building. Even cold calling sometimes in very esoteric thinking could come under the perview of customer services.
3. Now all these different touch points typically would be a start or culminating point of different internal processes managed by different departments/functions/individuals based on the org structure and process structure.
4. The question is to manage these processes efficiently (led by customer expectations) and ensuring that the orchestra team is playing each instrument at the right time.

Customer Service is all about managing expectations and is an ART that should be managed using Science. Is therefore not a question of whether a Customer Service Department should be under Sales. Most often than not the answer would be negative. But that is not the issue. The point is to ensure that your touch points are well defined and they are delivering right, again and again, in same and different circumstances. That brings in the subject of how to understand customer expectations and that's perhaps a separate discussion, Lastly I feel that anything to do with the customer needs to be strategic!!! Sphere: Related Content