What business are you in, IT or Customer service?

In his book “The Truth about Green Business”, Gil Friend writes about how railroads companies for many years considered themselves in the railroads industry rather than in transportation industry.

When I used to work as help desk support representative for a major hardware manufacturer the emphasis was on providing great customer service rather than fixing technical problems, we were trained to think as service agents rather than technicians.

Unfortunately, many customers cannot distinguish between the customer service rep and a technician. When I used to make on-site visits to fix technical problems, many customers would expect me to help them with customer service related issues in addition to fixing their technical problems.

It’s becoming harder to distinguish between the duties of customer service agent and support technician, especially at first level support, companies usually combine the jobs of the two into one position to streamline operation and cut costs.

I think it’s important for IT companies to define the industry they belong to, airlines, hotels and restaurants can be classified as service industries, but IT is clearly not all about customer service, but rather it’s about technical services.