The customer service department can handle many miscellaneous aspects of business. In retail, the customer service department might wrap gifts. In a shipping business the customer service department might track lost orders. Universally, the customer service department handles complaints.
When a business has a customer service department whose main job is to handle complaints from unhappy customers, it is a sign the business is broken. Here's why. Things always go wrong, that is the nature of products, services, and business -- that's life and is to be expected. If a business is lucky, the customer will complain, when a mishap or miscommunication happens. If a business is unlucky, the customer will simply go away. Not only did the company lose a customer and whoever else the unhappy customer convinces to use another business; but the company lost the opportunity to correct a problem that might be systemic in the organization.
So the lucky business has a customer who is complaining, although the employees think they are unlucky to have a customer complaining at them. Rather than take care of the problem, they send the customer to customer service, and that's where the business is broken. A business that is whole, that is stable, that is strong would be able to take corrective action at the point of complaint. A manager should be able to understand enough about customer service to fix the problem and create a happy customer; or to be able to call the correct person and receive immediate permission to fix the problem.
Think of it like this, a customer service department was created to handle complaints because the staff managers are not trained or trusted enough to do so. There's a problem right there. The customer service department acts as a buffer to keep unhappy customers away from upper management who do have the authority to take corrective action. Another problem. It's almost saying, that upper management is too important to deal with silly little unhappy customers who we actually would prefer to go somewhere else because their puny little business transactions aren't important enough to bother with.
There's the problem of money. It costs a firm money to maintain a customer service department. They have to pay employees, they have to provide space, they have to provide office equipment...and none of this brings in money to the organization. A business pays a lot of money for the customer service department for one reason and one reason only -- the customer didn't receive customer service.
