Customer Service Is a Game Changer for Marketing
Customer service and marketing don’t typically get matched up. Different departments, different duties, right?
At least, that’s the old school way of slotting this unique relationship.
But as more brands continue sprucing up their digital presence, customer service and marketing are now more entwined than ever before.
When done correctly, pairing the two can help solve tough issues, and boost customer satisfaction and profitability in the long run.
So in this article, I want to share at least six different ways that customer service can help improve your marketing efforts.
With these methods in mind, you’ll be one step ahead of your competition when it comes to both, your marketing and your customer service.
6 ways your customer service will help your marketing
Marketing and customer service should always be working in tandem to make your brand better. Here are six ways to make that happen.
1. Customer Service Can Inform Your Content Creation
Just ask any marketer how difficult it can be to generate ideas for good content on a regular basis. Even in ideal situations, it can be hard to know what will truly resonate with your audience.
This ideation phase of content development is critical. It’s what directs your initial efforts, and ultimately decides the outcome and success of your marketing efforts.
Creating good content isn’t enough anymore1, so the idea creation phase is more critical than ever.
The solution is to try to base your content ideas on customer needs; and who knows that better than your support reps?
By working with marketing, your customer support team can help direct marketing and content to meet various needs across your sales funnel.
It also allows you to generate a robust library of support and help articles that will keep your customers happy after they complete their purchase.
But without these ideas, your marketing team will continue to struggle in their quest to find good ideas. It’s a simple and elegant solution to pair up with your customer service.
2. They Can Flesh out Your Buyer Personas
Understanding the thought process of your ideal customer is vital when you’re trying to convince them. In marketing, you usually accomplish this step by creating a buyer persona2.
You base these personas on details about your ideal customers. Aspects like their age, income, and hobbies help create a clear picture as to where and how your marketing efforts should be directed.
But of course, these personas are subject to constant change and evolution, as your product and target audiences keep evolving.
Your marketing team needs to identify and understand the pulse of this change, which is where customer service again plays a crucial role.
Dedicated customer support teams will have worked more closely with your customers as their needs evolve. After all, they’re the ones who answer phone calls, send emails, and staff your live chat team.
That means they’ve heard direct feedback about the product from the customer. With that type of experience, they’re the most qualified group to help pose new solutions and flesh out your buyer personas.
3. They Will Help Establish Realistic Customer Expectations
These days, customer expectations are at an all-time high.
There’s no way to truly know what a customer really thinks when they buy. It’s one of the constant challenges faced by marketing teams across the globe.
And when issues arise, it’s often due to discrepancies between expectation and reality. That means your marketing team has made a promise that your product can’t keep.
But such complaints don’t go to marketing, they are sent to customer service.
In such a case if there’s a disconnect between your marketing team and your customer service team, then you’ll be in a constant feedback loop.
So by pairing up your customer service and marketing, you can control the expectations of your customers and monitor them better. Communicating these discrepancies will create honest marketing, that speaks directly to the customer.
With controlled expectations, you’ll get fewer complaints, less churn, and happier customers. That’s a powerful impact from an easy change.
4. Customer Service Unifies the Brand Message
On a similar note, miscommunication between customer service and marketing can lead to some rather embarrassing scenarios for your brand – like one department being unaware of what the other is doing.
According to a study3, more than half of your company is most likely missing out on that kind of vital information.
Just imagine a scenario where your customer service doesn’t know about a deal, a promotion, or a promise that marketing made to a customer.
How will they handle the initial calls or emails that will come in, if something goes wrong since they aren’t in the loop?
The only solution is to create better lines of communication between marketing and customer service. This unifies the message that your brand sends, and creates a much more positive experience in the event of any issues cropping up.
This creates a much more positive outcome. Here’s how Nate Clark of hired.com described his own experience:
People talk about everybody in the organization servicing customers, but we’ve actually put the idea into practice. We’ve aligned our entire company in service of our customers, and that is a decided competitive advantage.
It’s simple math. By unifying your brand message, your marketing and your customer service will be much more effective.
5. Customer Service Finds the Best Customer Stories
Most marketing is about storytelling. Your audience wants to hear stories about your product, brand, and satisfied customers.
Studies have shown that as many as 92% of people4 focus primarily on storytelling when vetting a brand. That’s across all genres of marketing, too.
Great struggles produce great stories.
Consider this recent story shared by the Huffington Post, about a blanket named Joshie5. While on vacation at a Ritz-Carlton hotel, a young boy accidentally left his favorite blanket behind.
The family contacted the hotel, and instead of brushing them off, the customer service team stepped up to the challenge.
They found the blanket, and then decided to help the distressed child feel better by showing him that his blanket was just taking an extra long vacation before heading home:
The next time that family goes on vacation, you can bet they’ll be staying at a Ritz-Carlton.
And it’s all because the customer service went above and beyond when a customer ran into an issue. It generated a heartwarming story and prompted the family to share the experience with everyone they could.
6. Shared goals = shared successes
Sustainable growth is always purposeful, and marketing is usually a huge part of that effort. It’s one of the many reasons why marketing is so analytics-based.
According to one study, marketers who create goals are four times more likely to be successful than those that don’t.
But what makes for a good marketing goal? There are plenty of targets that you can aim for, but merely aiming is no guarantee of success.
You need to set the right goals, and customer service can help you do that.
Just think about it. When marketing and customer service share the goal of resolving issues before they arise, that’s better for your brand and your customer.
With happier customers, you’ll have all of the benefits listed above, plus a clear direction forward.
And when done well, it will improve revenue, help your overall customer experience, and cement your future as a customer-centric brand.
Conclusion
While it’s not the most obvious matchup, marketing and customer service are inextricably linked.
That’s why you should make a concerted effort towards having your marketing and customer service departments team up.
This coupling will help you create content that speaks directly to your audience’s needs.
It will also flesh out your buyer personas, and give you a more accurate idea of your ideal customer. With that information, your marketing will be much more effective.
You can also set much more realistic customer expectations if you pair customer service and marketing, as you’ll be more in-tune with the end-user experience.
On a similar vein, clear communication can help prevent embarrassments and costly mistakes.
Plus, you’ll have a better pool of engaging customer stories that your marketing team can use to reach a wider audience. Storytelling and marketing go hand-in-hand, and customer service helps both factors.
Finally, with shared goals, you’ll be better situated to aim for growth in areas that truly matter.
With these benefits in mind, I highly recommend brainstorming new ways to get your marketing and customer service on the same page. The results are clearly worth it.
Source:
1–https://getcodeless.com/saas-content/
2–https://www.conversion-uplift.co.uk/glossary-of-conversion-marketing/persona/
3–https://dynamicsignal.com/2018/04/09/cost-of-poor-employee-communication/
4–https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/4-benefits-storytelling-marketing/
5–https://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-hurn/stuffed-giraffe-shows-wha_b_1524038.html
