After reading a great post on customer service, it does make me wonder what is the best possible way to scale customer service and I don’t think it can be just as simple as writing something on the wall. Things like good customer service are built on many layers, things like managers, good processes and a great working environment I reckon are all part of what really makes a small team scale. Imagine if you have a team of 40 or 50 people working out of just a single mailbox is that really going to work, I doubt it. Add a simple CRM and bingo all the customers are going to get an answer.
Now think about the phone, perhaps one of the most badly used tools in any customer service department some companies get it right like Rackspace who always manage to pickup the phone within the first couple of rings and I speak to a human, none of this press 1 for sales press 2 for tech support and most importantly don’t leave me hanging on hold! If this means that your accounting department needs to man the phone then make it happen because if I have a problem or a question anyone who is willing to help me even if they do not know the answer of the top of their head is going to make me feel 10x better.
So how to scale - it is still a valid question and perhaps one of the hardest things to get right but if you want an example of a company that does it right then go checkout Rackspace, I have been using them for nearly 5 years and was the victim of their last downtime but how they responded with email, blog posts, messages in the control panel, youtube video from the CEO and a cash refund gave me trust and actually increased my loyalty.