Many organisations claim that they exist “to satisfy their customers”, or to “maximise customer satisfaction”, or some other variation on this theme. When one examines their operations, one often finds both an ethos and an operational environment that is trying to do just that - maximise customer satisfaction or value.

If we take this concept to its logical conclusion - what would an organisation that is providing “maximum customer satisfaction” actually be doing? Even if it is providing good service at a good price and thereby satisfying customers, it is inevitable that competitor reaction will find a way to provide slightly better service or product at a slightly better price. When we extend this logic to its extreme, then “maximum” customer service must, by definition, be the provision of exceptional service at zero price to the customer - an obvious inanity.

The provision of customer service (together with a host of other motherhood and apple pie concepts) must be applied in the context of owner satisfaction. It is only against such a yard-stick that management can determine how much investment into customer satisfaction “is enough” to generate the outcomes desired.

Customer service, as noble and important as it may be, is “no more” than an enabler through which the organisation achieves its ends. No owner has invested in or created a corporation in order to provide customer service, per se.

Customer service is however, seen as the enabler or channel that will deliver the benefit or outcome sought by owners. Doing it well may be important and doing it better than the competitor may also be important, but only when it serves owner objectives and is used as an enabler and not as the reason for existence.

Does satisfying customers more than one’s competitors motivate the customer to buy, buy more, cross-buy, up-buy, provide the company with a strategic advantage? If it doesn’t do any of these things then why is the company spending money making customers happier?

Owners are therefore largely concerned with outcomes, while boards and management are understandably pre-occupied with means. It is not surprising then that management “elevates” the enabler to primary importance because that is the way management sees the world and it is the element that is largely controllable by them.

In the majority of corporations, management defines the outcomes that will be delivered by the corporation,  and management’s definition of these outcomes is, more often than not, a product of what is achievable in the marketplace rather than of what owners want. Since a key determinant of what is achievable in the marketplace is dependent on customer service (among other criteria) it is not at all surprising to observe corporations who pursue it with almost religious zeal and often at the expense of higher-level objectives.

Elevating enablers to primacy is dangerous because most organisations attempt to maximise core objectives. For example, companies try to maximise profit rather than ever say “this is enough profit in the context of all the other things we are trying to achieve”. But since customer service has a cost and is to some extent “limitless” all efforts to enhance customer service will carry significant financial implications for most corporations. Often corporations strive for continual enhancement of it, even when the marginal benefit has long turned negative - a point of which most companies are oblivious.

It is important for corporations to recognise that customer service is “only” an enabler, and to limit endless enhancements to the point of Just Noticeable Difference (JND). That is, the point where additional customer service is exceeded by benefits created by the provision of that additional customer service. “Obsessive or chronic enhancement” of customer service, is a common ailment of corporations who see their reason for existence as the provision of service, rather than the benefit that service provides.