Most executives and managers care about their customers and aim to provide them with superior service, or at least the right level of service given economic realities. Yet most of them also hold outdated or erroneous views of customer interaction. Perhaps the most prevalent of these views is that customer interaction in all its forms – call centers, retail salespeople, field service personnel, and technology-based systems—is an organizational backwater and a cost center, rather than the ultimate word-of-mouth-management mechanism and the differentiator in today’s marketplace.

Ongoing developments demand a strategic approach to customer interaction

	The internet now provides most of the information that sales people used to supply, plus competitive data and user reviews; this has changed the mission of sales, marketing, and service in fundamental ways.
	Almost half of all customer complaints, questions, and comments are submitted on the Web or via e-mail, but many companies still focus on their toll-free numbers, to the neglect of their Web-based capabilities.
	Global markets and the outsourcing of service activities have created angst for customers and raised cultural, financial, and risk management issues for companies.
	Turnover and labor shortages in customer service continually increase the cost of delivering superior service and squeeze tight margins even tighter.
	Gains from increased productivity as a result of technology, outsourcing, and industry consolidation have largely been realized, leaving service, broadly defined, as one of the few remaining targets for cost saving and profit growth.

Source : TARP World Wide