Explain how order management and customer service are related.

How an organization receives an order (electronically versus manually), how it fills an order (inventory policy and number and location of warehouses), and how it ships an order (mode choice and its impacts on delivery times) are all dictated by how an organization manages an order. Customer service, on the other hand, is anything that touches the customer. This includes all activities that impact information flow, product flow, and cash flow between the organization and its customers. Customer service can be described as a philosophy, as performance measures, or as an activity. Customer service as a philosophy elevates customer service to an organization-wide commitment to providing customer satisfaction through superior customer service. This view of customer service is entirely consistent with many organizations' emphasis on value management, elevates it to the strategic level within an organization, and makes it visible to top executives. Most organizations employ all three definitions of customer service in their order management process. Customer service is involved in both influencing a customer's order as well as in executing the customer's order.