Management, Human Resources, and Life in a Customer Focused World

Service Untitled wrote a post about the “Difference in Roles” in a service organization.  His three definitions are Support, Account Management, and Consulting.  I think that he’s missed his naming/definitions a little bit, but let’s play along for the moment.

Support is the least involved and consulting is the most involved, with account management in the middle.

Based on his descriptions, I agree with those definitions. That having been said, all too often, these roles are blurred and not nearly as defined.  At the organization that I’m currently consulting at, the overall call center comprises of over 150 employees that have some with defined roles (you’re Software Support; you’re outbound Sales; you’re Account Management) and others without.  One of the key teams that I’m involved with manages outbound sales, inbound technical support, in and outbound billing, inbound customer support, and inbound/outbound technical consulting.  Based on the three definitions, they’d do all three at the same time, although the Account Management is not a 1:1 ratio.

My experience differs somewhat from Douglas’. I’d separate the roles as follows:

Client Services: This comprises of both technical support and customer relations support. This role may be support or it may be account management, but it takes on the entire realm of responsibilities for helping the customer through.  This role would be required to work with the customer’s to solve any immediate problems as well as identify possible areas of opportunity for future sales or immediate up-sells.   This plays into the shifting focus from sales or service to sales and service. If the customer requires a higher level of knowledge than they’re able to handle, they would pass it over to the other roles.

Pre-Sales: The pre-sales role would be the role in which agents are responsible for working with the customer’s to identify what the best solution is and then helping them purchase it.  In part, this falls under Douglas’ “consulting” role, but is more limited.  They need to understand the customer’s needs well.

Consulting: In this role, I agree with him.  The consulting role, if taken to the level that it should be, is extremely complex as it requires the understanding of your customer’s needs, a comprehension of sales and balance, and also the capabilities of what products might work with your systems.

The structure would be the same as Douglas, though, in order of difficulty.  Client Services, pre-sales, and then consulting.