Whether you realize it or not, every time you interact with a customer, whether it's personal communications, websites, blogs, or emails, you're engaging in marketing (check out Seth Godin's post on this topic).  And so is everyone on your team.  This may seem like an obvious statement but it's crucial for Scrum teams and agile teams to realize this given their high level of interaction with clients and customers.  Every time you conduct an iteration planning meeting, or a sprint review, or even a daily stand up, you're marketing.  Your clients and customers are always listening to what you say and how you say it.  Think about this when you're designing your corporate website, writing a blog post or dealing with a customer service issue after you've delivered a piece of software.

This all came to mind this morning when I was calling our local communications provider Qwest.  I went to their website to find the phone number for their customer service line.  You'd think this would be right there on their main page.  Nope.  Not even a customer service link!  It took me 5 clicks to get me to an overly complicated customer service page that still didn't provide a phone number.  Instead it gave several different "Contact Us" links depending on your request type. My point here is not about website design, but about what this says about Qwest's commitment to customer service.  To me it says "We really don't want to talk to you if we don't have to". 

In addition to our difficulty in locating the correct number, we have received quite a run around trying to set up our T1 lines, our static IP block, and our phone lines at our new office.  We have received so much conflicting and confusing information from Qwest that after two months, we still don't have our T1 lines in.  After today's call to Qwest, it looks like we're finally on the right track.  But all of this poor interaction with Qwest has left us pretty disappointed in both their company and their product. 

Unfortunately, due to semi-monopolistic telecom policies in the U.S., we have to work with Qwest to get what we need (although Skype is a pretty good alternative these days).  But your clients and customers probably don't have to deal with you or your company if you do a lousy job communicating.  So remember, every interaction you have with clients and customers is a marketing opportunity.  Every person on your agile Scrum team, from the senior project manager to the intern developer is a marketing agent.  We need to realize that to keep our customers and clients satisfied, to keep them coming back to us for more work or providing good word of mouth about our organizations, we all need to be effective communicators and marketers.  We need to constantly go that extra mile to provide the best customer service possible.

By the way, the main Qwest customer service line is 1-800-603-6000...but expect to be bounced around quite a bit depending on your request...my record is 8 transfers in a single call!