I spent a lot of time tonight creating the FWPI org chart. Whew, that’s some hard work right there! I got stuck while trying to figure out where to put customer service – is it a function of sales and marketing or of operations?
My inclination is to put it under sales and marketing, which to me are essentially about helping customers make good decisions and then keeping them happy. This article seemed to agree with that assessment. And this one said to throw out the org chart altogether and draw a customer focused map instead. Jim Novo says lots of customer service issues would never arise if only marketing was more in the loop.
While I was looking for help, I came across a few cool things:
1. The Microsoft Org Chart: not really useful as a model for my company at this stage, but fun to see how complex it can get in the future
2. An Org Chart Wiki from Forbes that lets you browse the org charts of lots of companies and even add your own. So cool.
So, 45 minutes later I’m back to where I started … my gut. I’m going to put Customer Service within my sales and marketing group and I can always revise later if it turns out to be more operational in nature.
Input welcome!
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I think you made the right call for your business. I headed up Customer Service for my previous company for many years. In that product/retail business, it was more of an operational function…dealing with delivery issues, warranty issues, etc. In your type of business, I think it falls into a marketing function.