In a guest post over at Customer's Rock, Sean McDonald of Ant's Eye View asks,

"Who owns the customer?” Is it Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Product Development, PR, Investor Relations, Finance?"

It's so easy to pass the buck over to customer service whenever an issue comes up.

However, Sean is right when he says:

"...it is everyone’s responsibility to engage with customers. Not every group is an order taker or customer service helpdesk. But customers have questions, ideas that span entire life cycle."

Part of taking ownership of the customer is ensuring that all team members work together so that every customer is taken care of. I know how frusterating it is as a customer service person to ask someone in another department for help, only to be ignored or put on the back burner.

During my time at Nordstrom, I can remember a few instances when salespeople didn't want to help a customer because "that customer is so-and-so's customer...They should deal with it..." Sometimes the customer wasn't a pleasant person to talk to and I ended up having to take time away from the sales floor to work out a solution, even though I initially didn't help the customer. I had the attitude that every customer is my customer - which isn't usually the case in a commission-based sales position.

In your current organization, would you say that everyone takes ownership of the customer? If not - what can you do to change that?

Photo Credit: Gopal Vijayaraghavan