[nbarry]

I'm a huge fan of delegation, though I think the author's points are all excellent. Here's how recommend doing both: Hire someone to process and review customer complaints. Give them very specific guidance about how they're to handle customer concerns. If they can solve the problem within some predetermined short amount of time (say, 20 minutes), they should solve it. If it will take significantly longer, then they should escalate it to someone who can probably solve it faster, and can provide a more remarkable support experience.

The support screener should also summarize all the different types of tickets we get into categories for executive review.