I know every person and company believes in customer service. I don’t doubt it for a second. The problem is most of us try to fix it with people. We talk about customer engagement, belittling companies for having indignant and unruly employees. Most think of customer service in terms of people; how quickly a person picks up the phone, how quickly a person can solve a problem, how many people are manning the lanes at the grocery store. Customer service is all too often seen as how people interact or react to a situation.

The problem is most customer service wins or loses based on the processes or systems that support the people. If you want better customer service, look at how you run the business. What processes can be fixed to make the experience with your company better. Do you make it easy for your employees to provide customer service? What are your ordering processes like? How easy is it for a customer to make a return? What’s it take to address a problem with an invoice? What happens when an order is lost or doesn’t meet expectations?

It doesn’t matter how hard your people try, how fast they move, or how big their smile is. If your processes suck, if the systems are whacked, there will be no customer service.

People won’t make you a customer service company. They will only keep you from being a crappy service company and that’s not the goal.

Look beyond the people.