A couple of years ago, the small dot com company I work for embarked on a cost-cutting drive. In light of the company’s commitment to the highest coding standards in their products, it was decided that a proper customer services department was a superfluous luxury, and they abandoned all efforts to establish one.

Instead, our “customer service” was carried out by a solitary, chain-smoking Australian. If he was engaged or unavailable, the support call would be routed from phone-to-phone, through an aptly named ‘hunt group’, in search of an unsuspecting staff member upon whom the caller could vent their fury. Unfortunately, his frequent cigarette breaks meant that this was a common occurrence. Each time our Antipodean departed the building, slamming the door behind him, a tsunami of terror swept through the office. The web developers scrambled to enable the ‘do not disturb’ function on their phones; those in marketing sprang to their feet with previously unsuspected alacrity, and disappeared into the office kitchenette to make an emergency cup of tea, or hold an impromptu meeting.

On one fateful day, the office was bombarded with an unprecedented level of customer complaints. It turned out that our online direct debit payments system, built in-house, had become a ravenous monster overnight, launching repeated raids on our customer’s bank accounts like a band of restless Visigoths. Some customers had been debited three times for the same transaction, and had incurred bank charges. As I struggled to regain my composure and stem the tide of retribution, a nervous snort suddenly erupted from the cubicle behind me.

Through some accident of fate, a rogue call had somehow penetrated the lair of our most socially awkward web developer. Every morning this chap entered the office in the same manner, marching determinedly ahead with precisely placed steps, catching the eye of no-one. Having reached a precisely defined point close to his desk, he would turn his head sharply towards the other inhabitants of the office, stammer a quick ‘Morning!’ and then dive quickly below the parapet of his cubicle, thus avoiding the discomfort of having to engage in trivial conversation.

Now we were about to see how he fared when exposed to the consequences of his coding. After a long pause and a great deal of heavy breathing, the receiver was suddenly snatched from its cradle and a high-pitched ‘Yes!?‘ was offered, sounding more like a cry for help than a salutation. Even from where I was sitting, I could hear the raised voice of the customer; the accusations, the recriminations and the demand for recompense. All that our developer could summon in response were a series of distressed yelps and a few stifled mumblings. ‘Look, I just can’t help you!‘ he finally whimpered, before slamming the receiver down violently, cutting off the customer in mid flow. There then came the sound of more heavy breathing, before the unmistakable low beep which accompanied the enabling of the ‘do not disturb’ function on the developer’s phone.  It would remain enabled for the next couple three months.

While the developers scrambled to fix the online payment software, our Australian friend was quickly overwhelmed with calls, and became progressively more stressed. His cigarette breaks grew longer and more frequent, his lungs blackened and his breathing became laboured. The onslaught of overspill calls quickly reduced all but the senior management team to a state of institutionalised terror. The sales and marketing swung into a spiral of depression. The developers rebelled and simply refused to answer their phones at all. Something had to give. Eventually, after much hand waving and shouting, the management relented and announced that it was expanding the customer services team.

Our company had stumbled across the first law of business: incompetence is inevitable.

No matter how solid the commitment to the quality of one’s products, the vagaries of both human and machine error will contrive to capsize one’s good intentions, and feed the survivors to the sharks for good measure. An anvil is needed, upon which customers can vent the frustration and anger that is the inevitable result of this incompetence.

In the 4th century BC, Aristotle observed that some of his countrymen were born into a state of ‘natural slavery’, destined by nature to be servile and worthy of subjugation. This observation went on to become the founding principle of the customer services department, the liver-like organ of the business that acts to shield the company from the consequences of its mistakes and errant decisions. Many a bright eyed young thing, selected by unscrupulous recruiters for their youthful naivety, has entered into a role in ‘customer care and retention,’ in a spirit of benevolence and compassion. They leave as a broken carcass of a human being, having been tortured relentlessly by furious disembodied voices.

As thankless a task as it is, you should never undervalue your customer services team. If you do then like the Wehrmacht generals who, when planning Operation Barbarossa, decided that thermal underwear was an un-heroic and unnecessary extravagance, you will soon suffer the consequences of your frugality.