There are several, conflicting schools of thought about the importance of providing great Customer Service. The first school of thought (let's keep things non-judgmental and call them the clueless, greedy, very-very-naughty folks) see Customer Service as a unavoidable-though-regrettable cost of doing business. In their view, Customer Service is a nefarious drain on the organization's valuable resources that could otherwise be used to fuel the corporate Marketing and Sales machines. This school of thought is naturally comprised mainly of marketers, sales professionals, venture capitalists, and unenlightened executives - often from the Telco or Banking industry.
The second school of thought (again, let's keep things neutral and call them naïve, altruistic, head-in-the-sand do-gooders) believe that Customer Service affords organizations a chance to differentiate themselves from competitors, and if done well enough, can completely replace the need to engage in any Marketing or Sales efforts at all. These lost souls reason that if you provide world-class customer service that completely blows everyone else out of the water, happy customers will spontaneously refer you to all of their friends, family, and online communities creating a viral tsunami of goodwill (and corresponding sales orders). The main proponents of this school of thought are of course customer service professionals, ivory tower academics and think-tank geniuses (who haven't ever gotten their hands dirty in the trenches), and fresh-on-the-scene, Social CRM self-proclaimed (wanna-be) gurus.
As you probably already guessed, both of these schools of thought are (equally) severely delusional. For example, you can't run a successful business by consistently avoiding your customers and outsourcing your customer service operations to the cheapest, no-frills, off-shore service provider. Doing so will simply annoy your customers and incur their wrath in online communities and social forums. On the other hand, while providing top-notch customer service is a great starting point, it is not going to completely eliminate the need to engage with your customers. You still need to reach out to your customers via targeted, channel-appropriate Marketing efforts. Otherwise your product or service is not going to sell itself (with the possible exception of Apple perhaps).
As with anything however, there are always a few exceptions to the rule ("I before E except after C" and that sort of thing). Hence, I've provided a list of unique situations in which companies may not need to worry about Customer Service at all. If your company finds itself in one of the can't lose situations below, just sit back and enjoy the ride (or not).
Five Situations in Which Customer Service is Unimportant, Superfluous, or Simply a Lost Cause
1) You have a monopoly or operate in a tightly regulated market where you have no direct competitors and you are absolutely certain that the market will remain so for at least the next 300 years. In this case, you can safely continue to ignore the desperate pleas of your customers and dole out lackluster (or non-existent) customer service as you see fit with an air of superiority and condescension. These revolting, groveling customers are lucky you even bother to answer their telephone calls or provide a confusing and ultimate useless IVR phone tree. You don't have time (or money) to waste on setting up a self-service web site or providing 24x7 customer service agents; you need to wisely spend all your resources lobbying government officials to preserve your monopolistic empire.
2) Your products are cheaper (much, much, cheaper) than any other comparable competitor product. Hasn't anyone heard the expression, "you get what you pay for"? If people want fancy, expensive Grey-Poupon customer service, let them go to Ritz Carlton or their Lexus dealer. Come on, for what these penny-pinching customers pay they are lucky that you generously throw in a thin paper box and a piece of bubble wrap.
3) Your company (and your company's products/services) are way cooler than anyone else's. Or alternatively, your company's CEO thinks he/she is way cooler than anyone else. In either case you can probably get away with providing mediocre or sub-par customer service without ruffling too many feathers. Customers are much more willing to tolerate customer service missteps from an a company with a very high "cool" factor like an Apple, Google or Facebook than from a company whose products are seen as commodities.
4) Customers feel they will die if they don't have your product (think beer, cigarettes or iPads/iPhones). Or alternatively, customers will actually (literally) die if they don't have access to your product (think pharmaceuticals, medical devices, etc.). If the law of supply and demand is in your corner, especially when it's a matter of life (real or perceived) the rules go out the window and you're in charge. If customer's complain about your products, just argue that the customer is using your product incorrectly. You don't need no stinkin' customer service.
5) You market and sell products to hardworking, loyal, rural American families who have been buying your products for generations (and who still prefer your products over foreign offerings with the same or lower costs and better service). While this advantage won't last forever and is most likely already eroding, you might still be able to milk that cash cow for another few years. As a rule of thumb, if your customers tattoo your logo on their body parts or display stickers of your brand logo urinating on a rival's brand logo, you are probably still safe for a while at least. But on the other hand, nothing lasts forever and perhaps now is a good time to start revamping your customer service processes - if you haven't already.
About the author: John Burton works at SAP as a Director of Product Management (with a general manager's mindset). John has been involved with CRM / Customer Service for over 11 years. He is currently responsible for SAP's CRM Interaction Center (Contact Center) and Social CRM offerings. You can also find him online at Twitter @burtonjohn and LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/in/sapjohnburton). When not blogging at TheSocialCustomer, John enjoys cycling, mountain biking, and ultra-marathon running in the Santa Cruz and Sierra Nevada mountains.