26 Examples of a Customer Service Process

John Spacey, April 08, 2022

A customer service process is a series of structured steps for providing a service. This is seldom a single process but is rather a collection of processes that handle elements of marketing, sales, support, customer relationships, business improvement and operations. The following are common customer service processes.

Crisis Management	Customer Advocacy
Customer Communication	Customer Contact
Customer Feedback	Customer Journey
Customer Loyalty	Customer Relationship Management
Customer Retention	Customer Support
Escalation	High Touch
Incident Management	Information Gathering
Issue Management	Negotiation
Problem Management	Problem Resolution
Quality of Service	Selling
Service Culture	Service Improvement
Service Training	Single Point of Contact
Ticket Management	Voice of the Customer

Customer Advocacy

Customer advocacy is the process of representing the customer in internal processes. For example, a customer service representative who pushes for design changes to a product based on customer feedback.

Crisis Management

Processes that are put in place to deal with a crisis. For example, a restaurant that has a predefined process for dealing with a fire or power outage.

Customer Communication

The process of keeping the customer updated regarding customer service. For example, an ecommerce company that emails a customer when their order will be delayed two days.

Customer Contact

Customer contact is the process of managing contact with the customer such as a customer inquiry.

Customer Feedback

Collecting, communicating, reporting and actioning customer feedback.

Customer Journey

Customer journey is the marketing process of cultivating the end-to-end customer experience including customer service.

Customer Loyalty

The process of encouraging customer loyalty. For example, sending customers a small gift certificate on their birthday.

Customer Relationship Management

The process of building and sustaining the customer relationship. For example, a landlord who gives their best tenants a Christmas gift basket each year.

Customer Retention

Customer retention is the process of trying to retain customers, particularly those who are dissatisfied. For example, a bank that offers to drop certain fees for a year if the customer doesn't close their account.

Customer Support

Customer support is process of helping customers to use your products and services.

Escalation

Escalation is the process of reaching out to management and other departments to clear an issue.

High Touch

High touch is customer service that requires a great deal of customer interaction. For example, a house builder that may answer hundreds of questions and walk the customer through the end-to-end design of a custom house.

Incident Management

Incident management is the process of solving the symptoms of a problem. For example, if a lift at a ski resort has a maintenance issue staff may be posted at the bottom of the lift to help skiers find an alternative route.

Information Gathering

The process of listening to customers and questioning them to gather the information required to address their inquiry or problem. This may involve a workflow for obtaining the information required for a standard type of request.

Negotiation

The process of negotiating with the customer. For example, a vehicle sales process that has the salesperson go to get a manager to return with an offer to the customer. This may make the offer seem more final and make the customer more hesitant to keep pushing for a reduced price.

Problem Management

Problem management is the process of addressing the root cause of a problem as opposed to the symptoms. For example, if a streaming media service is slow, problem management would address infrastructure and algorithmic issues that cause the low performance.

Problem Resolution

The process of solving a problem from the customer point of view. This may not address the problem from a business point of view. For example, moving a customer to a new room if their current room has a maintenance issue. The maintenance issue would then be solved as part of separate incident and problem management processes.

Quality of Service

The process of monitoring service quality and making improvements. For example, an art gallery that uses secret shoppers to try to determine the source of poor reviews and customer satisfaction.

Selling

Customer service processes may involve sales, upselling and cross-selling processes.

Service Culture

The process of cultivating a positive service culture. For example, a process of rewarding top performers and managing low performance that gives strong incentives to be helpful, professional and friendly.

Service Improvement

The process of measuring service, making improvements and measuring again.

Service Training

The process of developing and training customer service talent.

Single Point of Contact

Single point of contact is the process of providing customers with one person who will handle service for a period of time. For example, a wealth management service that provides each customer with an advisor with direct contact information so they never have to use with an automated system if that's their preference.

Ticket Management

Ticket management is the process of tracking customer service processes such as contacts and incidents with tickets.

Voice of the Customer

Voice of the customer is the process of capturing customer needs, expectations, perceptions and experiences in order to improve services and products. This is far more in-depth than a feedback form such that it resembles market research.