Recent emphasis on customer service in both the academic
and trade literature reveals a growing but confusing body of
knowledge. Both the marketing and logistics disciplines have
offered varying definitions of customer service, but have
failed to offer a comprehensive framework which represents
customer service and its related marketing and logistics is
sues. This article offers the viewpoint that customer service
is a conceptual unifying factor for integrating marketing and
logistics. The channel system is introduced as the vehicle by
which buyer/seller relationships must be analyzed to under
stand formation of buyer expectations, interaction of market
ing and logistics activities, and subsequent customer service
performance. The institutional, behavioral, and physical
dimensions of channel activity influence many of the market
ing and logistics decisions made by management. The
framework offered in this article differs from previous efforts
in that customer service is the output of the unified activities
of marketing and logistics. It considers marketing and logis
tics decisions jointly, re-evaluates and expands the produc
tion function in logistics, and ties customer service to
customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
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