You’re NOT in the product OR service business!!!!!

We are NOT in the product business. We are NOT in the service business. We are all in the CX business. CX simply means customer experience.

Which means that the product isn't the asset. It could be part of the asset but not the main asset. The service you provide isn't the asset as if there are options, that do this one thing that you fulfill on faster, cheaper, efficiently or effectively then your service ceases to produce current or future revenue. 
From investing 101, any resource that has inbuilt value (emotional, psychological or economic) that can be traded at a marketplace current or future is considered an asset.

Now the problem with this definition is that it isn't objective meaning that one persons asset maybe viewed as another's liability. It also doesn't address the collective grouping of different assets and liabilities to provide a cumulative asset value.

Nevertheless, independent of the assessment criteria used there is one thing that keeps your business running. Keeps the doors open and the lights on. How you treat your current customers.

So being in the online space, I frequently have tech hiccups and have to reach out to support teams every now and then to get some help. Now I consider myself pretty technically savvy however on some occasions, the tech goes way over my head.

The other day I was experiencing a tech migraine when for whatever reason I couldn't upload templates in to my WordPress dashboard. My platform company gave suggestions to share with my hosting company and even gave me the exact definitions to use. On the other had my hosting company would respond with "We don't specialize in that" and "This is outside the scope of what we do" 
Totally understand. However the marketer in me kicked in!!!! "Do you have specifics of what the probable problem is?" "Do you have any suggestions of what or who I should contact next?"
I was starting to get frustrated. To the extent of desperation.

"Maam, we don't solve this problem....you may need to talk to a tech guy or your web development guy"

So frustrated, I left and it was right there and then that I knew I had a blog post in me!!! True it may have been outside their scope. True they specialize in only one aspect of the problem solving and great that they are focused. Now here is where the learning moment exists. Even if you're incapable of solving the presented problem, how you frame it determines whether the customer will feel discouraged about the problem of hopeful about the solution.

Here's how I would have responded.

"Maam since we specialize in solving hosting problems, it seems like this is more of web development problem specifically web apps based on,
1. We added more memory
2. We adjusted the htaccess file
3. We checked the .ini file for restrictions
and here's exactly what to tell your web development guy to check for. I also have a few people i can recommend to you who can help you with that however t hey do charge and you can negotiate. Here are their links and they can be found on upwork.com"

It doesn't cost an extra dime to go a step further by taking the initiative. Especially if you anticipate similar problems in the future. While companies are freaking out about AI and technology, small nimble companies that care about the customer are daylight robbing you off your daily bread simply by internalizing you customers problems as if they were their own.
Don't be that business!!!