Read a good article today on the HBR blog by Clif Reichard.  Can You Sell Without Lying? He approached customer service from another angle – the beginning of the relationship with a customer – sales.  Given some of the comments, he must have hit a nerve in a touchy subject – integrity.  The great salespeople recognize that:

• Their efforts are a solution to a customer problem,
• Real value must be created from the transaction,
• A single sale of questionable integrity may preclude much more lucrative opportunities later,
• Matching customer needs with product/service capabilities is their primary function, and
• Sometimes, walking away from a bad deal is a good thing.

The pivot point is that each part of an organization “owns” honesty. If a link in the integrity chain is broken, we all lose.  Customers lose because their needs aren’t met.  Sales loses because their reputation as a business function is tarnished.  The whole organization loses because they spend valuable time trying to recover from an avoidable situation.