Oh, they "offer" it.
Is customer service a differentiator? Certainly. Would it support the company without the underlying service they provide customer service for? No. Actually Comcast helps prove my point: A company can be sufficiently "incentivized"[1] by providing a service, with no satisfactory customer service supporting it. A company cannot provide customer service, with no underlying actual services/goods actually paid for[2]. -sc [1] I rather hate that word [2] Obviously there are "services" companies that provide only that, however that becomes their "product" , and they are typically an outsourced arm to support some other underlying good/service From: listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsad...@lists.myitforum.com] On Behalf Of Michael B. Smith Sent: Monday, April 21, 2014 6:25 PM To: ntsysadm@lists.myitforum.com Subject: RE: [NTSysADM] OT: Corporate Support of Open-Source projects Can you say "Comcast" ?? I knew you could... From: listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsad...@lists.myitforum.com] On Behalf Of Andrew S. Baker Sent: Monday, April 21, 2014 6:20 PM To: ntsysadm Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] OT: Corporate Support of Open-Source projects So, only the category leaders (and those vying to be category leaders) offer customer service? Are there any category leaders that *don't* offer customer service (or anything approaching real customer service), while others in their category do? ASB http://XeeMe.com/AndrewBaker <http://xeeme.com/AndrewBaker> Providing Virtual CIO Services (IT Operations & Information Security) for the SMB market... On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 10:07 AM, Kurt Buff <kurt.b...@gmail.com> wrote: On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 5:56 AM, Steven M. Caesare <scaes...@caesare.com> wrote: >> Re: Companies' incentives: That's not universally true. I refer you to companies that have as at least some of their core operating principles the ideas of customer service - > > That's an ends to a means. That customer service exists to promote goodwill with regard to the customer buying products the sell, > > The litmus test for these: > > Cold the company conceivably exist by eliminating the "extra mile" customer service? Yes. Could they existin by eliminating product sales? No. Hrm. I don't think that's the right yardstick. I believe the question should be: Would these companies be category leaders if they didn't have such good customer service? And I believe the answer is no. Kurt
