experience, customer engagement, bonding, or something else, the service mission is to solve problems with and for customers. Sometimes the solution is a real fix, but many other times, a solution involves additional for-cost services or products.
Even if the solution does not require an additional sale, in this increasingly subscription-oriented world, service becomes a moment of truth that can bond customers like barnacles or send them flying off like a hive of disturbed bees. A moment of truth is simply one of those times when a vendor has to make good on a promise that's either stated or implied by the product or service in question, and that's a hard thing to do because so many things are interpreted as implied in customers' minds.
For instance, a vendor trying to occupy the niche of low-cost provider of an adequate product (think of a non-iPhone) has to make a product that is intuitive and easy to use to keep customer support costs down and aid adoption. But customers always find ways to misunderstand things and require service. So the vendor has to be able to solve customer needs that are often not thought up until they present themselves.
All this makes an argument for being able to insert real people into the service process, because only they can juggle the information in the database with their product knowledge for the customer on the other end of the phone, email, or social network. Successes in those moments of truth drive bonding and even if the customer doesn't make a purchase today, the experience will position the vendor well for a future one.
For all these reasons, it appears to me that the service department is coming into a new period when business increasingly depends on it. Call it the new SaaS era.