The English-language word "love" is a nebulous concept, and conversations that suggest a firm should love its customers tend to meander off in an unproductive direction, but it does seem to merit closer consideration. With that in mind, this may be a silly and punctilious meditation, but here goes ...
The concept of "love" is difficult to discuss in terms of the word itself because this single word encompasses a number of different concepts that are related to the same range of emotions. If memory serves me well, the Greeks had at least six different words (I may be forgetting a few) that signify different types of love, which may help to focus and differentiate a bit: eros, philops, storge, agape, telema, and caritas.
Eros (Passion and Sexual Desire)
The notion of love as a purely sexual desire is likely the least appropriate, and the most distracting, to a customer service situation. I mention it first as a means of getting it out of the way and getting on to more appropriate matters.
At the same time, eros has a presence in any human interaction, including customer service: customers buy more, tip more, and feel more satisfied when they are served by a person they find to be sexually attractive. A restaurant with great food and homely waitresses will do much less business that one with mediocre food and attractive ones (consider Hooters and the other "breastaurant" chains that have experienced significant success).
Companies discriminate in favor of sexually attractive people - given two candidates for a position or a promotion who are equally qualified, the more attractive of the two will be chosen or, in some instances, a more attractive but less qualified candidate will win over a less attractive and more qualified one. As offensive as that may be to our sense of reason and morality, it is undeniable.
But this may be a distraction: there are situations in which sexual attraction can be leveraged, but it is generally in a subversive way, with knowledge that it is inappropriate. As such it bears no further consideration. Think about it, have a chuckle, and move on.
Philios (Loyalty and Brotherhood)
The notion of love as a sense of kinship and brotherhood is somewhat useful, but has drawbacks. Primarily, it requires the customer to be a member of a group in order to be served well by the business, and implies that anyone who is not a member of the group is unwelcome or will at least be treated as second class.
Some firms leverage this in order to serve a niche market or a specific demographic. A retailer that serves the needs of women, a minority-owned business, a christian hardware store, and a "cop bar" all pull upon the sense that the firm is "run by X to serve X" and that you're not buying from a stranger, but someone who is like you in some significant way.
Philios in the general sense (every man is my brother) is good principle of morality, to treat people as if they are your own family or friends, customers, but in a service situation the love of all mankind is too nebulous to have much value as a guide to interaction.
Storge (Respect and Reverence)
The idea of treating a customer as if they are a person of importance, to be respected and revered just because of who they are, is far more pronounced in some cultures than in others.
In contemporary American culture it's not very pronounced, and while there does seem to be some sense that the customer is to be revered, some Americans take objection to being treated with deference. Some people still insist on being called "sir" or "ma'am" whereas others react as if they had been offered an insult.
I've not seen any formal research, but a few informal website polls show that it's split about 50/50. And it's with some irony that one of these polls offered cross-tabulation against demographic factors to show that the people who most demand deference are the people who least merit it: a college drop-out with a slightly above-average income is more likely to insist on being called "sir" than an affluent person with a graduate degree. Go figure.
With that in mind, storge is sometimes necessary to customer service, but it's largely superficial: you don't actually have to respect the customers in order to serve them, but you must pretend to respect them and go through the various superficial gestures and rituals to feed their desire to feel important.
Agape (Appreciation)
"Agape" means a sense of appreciation that is not attached to a specific quality or purpose - a love for mere existence. The term has been co-opted by the christian and protestant religions and to some degree subverted to suit their agenda, but in the basic sense, they have it right: it is the love of all mankind, friend and enemy alike, which seems to blur a bit into the general notion of philios.
Some pretension of agape is present in the notion of "customer appreciation," but it is to some degree disingenuous: a firm does not appreciate customers merely for their existence as human beings, but with a much more mercenary intent. Instead, it appreciates them for the sake of the money they give to the firm. Companies "love" their people who buy their product and speak well of them to others, but do not extend the same sentiment to those who shop their competition and speak critically of them.
I haven't seen much suggestion that a firm should extend respect to individuals who are indifferent or hostile to the brand - except in the reminder that people change: today's non-buyer may become a customer in future, and a critic's sentiment may change. But there's a wide gulf between tolerating them and loving them.
Telema (Desire to Possess)
The concept of telema is the least specific of the six, and as such bears the least fruit. It would be accurate to state that a business desires to have customers and customers desire to have products, but this simplified version of the relationship seems utterly unenlightening.
In philosophical discussions, telema seems to be the catch-all category of love, and if it is included in the discussion at all it is relegated to the love of objects. To say that "I love my car" does not imply any of the other concepts of love, which seem to be reserved for feelings we have toward human beings.
It would seem that telema does have impact on the design of products or services to make them desirable to the customer, exploring the inexplicable desire to discover an explanation that can be served. I haven't been able to find the etymology, but I suspect it derives from the same root as "teleos," a moral concept that regards actions as a means to an end, such that the desire for an object is derived from the purpose to which it is intended.
I don't discount that there may be some sense of telema in the customer service situation - but I am struggling so much to connect the dots that I don't expect that I can provide a plausible suggestion.
Caritas (Protection and Goodwill)
Caritas seems to me the form of love that is most applicable to customer service: it is the kind of love that leads us to wish to protect an individual from evil (or harm) and provide assistance to them in accomplishing the good. To "care for" someone in this seems the very nature of service.
To have caritas toward the customer entails serving their interests: to provide to them products and services that help them to solve the problems they face, or to help them to achieve the goals to which they aspire. This seems to be central to the purpose of any firm, and central to the reason that a customer seeks out a provider.
It could be suggested that caritas is feigned, and that the primary motive of a firm is to make money, and that serving customers is a necessary evil to accomplish the main goal ... but I disagree. If you consider the mission statement of most companies, and accept that it is a genuine statement of their motivation, few firms place profitability above service, and most recognize that profit is the result of successful service. But that is not necessarily so, and becomes another and much larger argument.
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That's about as far as I care to take this meditation at present - and I am satisfied with the conclusion that caritas is a more specific and appropriate consideration of the way in which a firm should "love" its customers. While other concepts of love may be applicable to specific situations, caritas seems the most suitable in a broad sense: every firm should tend to the benefit of its customers, to protect and aid them.
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