When Does Customer Service Start and Stop

Recently a question was posed to me, “When does customer service start and stop?”

The question was focused on the customer transaction, which I like to call a customer interaction. However, I will take a more philosophical approach to this question.

Customer service starts long before the customer ever walks through your door, calls your business, finds your website, etc. It starts with your vision, mission and with the first person you hire or partner with. It starts as you create the culture of your organization and as you begin to plan out what the customer experience should be. In other words, it starts long before the customer ever starts actually doing business with you.

It ends when the company ends. In between the start of a business and the close of business, there are interactions (with customers and employees), technology opportunities (social media), product/service developments – everything and anything that will affect the customer experience.

Shep Hyken is a customer service/CX expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. Learn more about Shep’s customer service and customer experience keynote speeches and his customer service training workshops at www.Hyken.com. Connect with Shep on LinkedIn.

(Copyright ©MMXI, Shep Hyken)