Great service defines a company. But a recent study by Accenture found that customer service standards are in freefall. The problem is that service is complex, cross-functional, rational and emotional. In our experience, there are five archetypal failure points of service management.

Investing in customer insight but cutting customer contact makes no sense. Service teams have huge emotional investment in putting right the things that cause customers angst. They should be central to strategic product and service innovation.

In a just world, everyone would love the new utilities like Google, Skype and Facebook. Reality isn’t like that because people expect great customer service. New utilities could meet that expectation. But they need a new approach to service management and design. Customers are demanding a good service experience and that’s exactly what the new utility’s struggle to provide when things go wrong.

Evading customer contact is an easy response to high contact volumes that makes customers angry. Much better to implement a disciplined service management framework that lets you be easily contactable without drinking from the fire hydrant.