Last night I was reading a blog post by Faris Yakob entitled, “Customer service is marketing.” In four (4) words he had articulated a concept I’ve been pondering the last week or so at my 9-5. I took it one step further by adding “the new” (which I felt safe in doing, since his blog’s title is talent imitates, genius steals).

Faris brought up the ever topical example of Zappos, which reminded me of the less-topical-as-of-late example of Comcast, as well as my daily experiences at a company with unrivaled customer support. I’ve always been a believer in the power of word-of-mouth marketing. Customer Service can act as a catalyst to generate this phenomenon.

Wanting to see if I had really come up with appropriated this ground-breaking, perception alerting phrase, I looked it up. That’s when I found Lane Becker, who has already done a great deal to develop this concept.

Oh well. So I didn’t come up with this catchy phrase. There is so much potential in the application of this concept to a company’s long term marketing strategy that I can’t let it bother me.

Over time, stories of your impeccable level of service will saturate the market and your brand reputation will improve as a result. While this shouldn’t take the place of all marketing efforts (diversify baby, diversify), it should at the very least achieve three (3) things.

1. Change the way you think about the way you do business.
2. Change the way you think about marketing.
3. Change the way you think about yourself.

Do I sell a product or am I a concierge? What is my ideal relationship with my customer base and how do I best achieve that? Do I have clients or do I have partners?

Yes, that last question leapt right into the heart of brand identity. But that’s what happens when you make a commitment to focus on service. It goes beyond the activities we typically associate with customer service. It creates a lens, forcing you to reassess all of your relationships, including the relationship with yourself. Or maybe that’s just an existential crisis.

The point is that a true commitment to customer service means more than just always answering the phone within two (2) rings (but that’s a great start).

Perhaps we should take the concept of customer service further. Literally, ask yourself, am I providing service to the customer? Every interaction should be provide some sort value-add. This works great when a brand extends itself into social media and engages the market anew. The aim can be simple; tell them things that they didn’t know and will profit from learning.

Every interaction empowers your customers. The only variable is whether they will be empowered to sing your praises or decry your shortfalls.

Empower your customers to empower you.

Customer Service is the new Marketing.