A few years ago, when digital marketing was not as big as it is now, there was no need for a company’s marketing department and their customer support to collaborate. However today, a company cannot become that successful if both these departments don’t work hand-in-hand.
This is primarily because the channel where a company will market is often the same channel that their customers are turning to if they have concerns and issues about the company’s products and services.
To make it clear, let’s put it this way:
One of the biggest digital channels that a company can use to gain brand reputation and promote their products and services is social media. Social media platforms have immense traffic and it is just right for businesses to take advantage of this huge amount of traffic to market their services. In fact, these platforms are also what customers prefer and spend most of their time. Communication is almost instantaneous in social media and nothing is greater than having to drop a message to a business and receive an answer in no time.
What does this mean? This means that social media is both a marketing and customer service tool. Ultimately, the marketing and the customer support department will be using the same channels to go about their business operations. With this in mind, it has become a requirement that these two departments collaborate in order to create a consistent environment for the customers to see.
And, it is not just social media. There are a lot of ways that both these important teams of a business can work together. We have listed some of them below. So, grab your pen and a pad of paper and start brainstorming about how you can come up with a system that lets the staff from both marketing and customer support collaborate for better results consistently.
Content Creation
Many think that the customer service department has no say when it comes to coming up with ideas on the types of content that will be published on a business’ website or blog. Well, it is far from the fact. For what it’s worth, customer support can actually play a vital role in creating a stream of consistent content.
In every article that teaches you about digital marketing, one thing that is almost always included is that a business should understand who their target market is in the first place. The marketing department can only guess. Yes, there are tools out there that can let marketers know basic information about who is visiting their website but that does not really give away the real deal.
This is where customer support comes into action. The people under this department primarily deal with the queries, concerns, and issues of the customers themselves. They get to talk to those who actually matter to the business and they have a good idea about who their customer really is after having different kinds of conversation with real people.
So, during your next meeting, it would be great if you let the marketing department brainstorm with the people under customer support. Through their insights, the customer support team can give the marketers an idea of what topics would be more interesting and valuable to their target audience.
Setting Customer Expectations
One way that a business can tell if their marketing campaigns are effective or not is when their customers know what to expect with the business’ products and services. Often, when possible leads are clear on the products and services you offer, they have a higher chance of being converted as buying customers.
So, how can the customer support department help in this aspect? It is pretty simple actually. Remember that customer support always deal with customers. They interact with them regularly. Most of the times, they will have to answer questions from people who have come across the company’s products and services.
After the conversation, the customer service representative will then be able to judge if the customer actually understands what the offers are based on the questions they asked. After that, they can notify the marketing department if there was any misleading information about the product. And then, the marketing department can edit and create a better campaign to fix these expectations.
Social Media Customer Service
This is what we have mentioned earlier in this article. Social media has become like an all-in-one hub for the business to do their marketing, promotions, and customer support. If you are lucky, you may have hired a marketing expert that is also skilled at handling customer service. But, that rarely happens.
Marketing and customer service are really different arenas and each of these departments have their own set of training programs and strategies to master. This ultimately means that the staff in their respective departments is the best in their field. Social media may have been the key tool that marketers use to promote the company’s services and products. However, this is not to say that they are the only ones that can use it. It is important that both the marketing team and the customer service team collaborate and use social media efficiently.
This means that both teams should talk with each other in order to use the business social media account consistently. You do not want your customers to see a difference in how you post and talk to them, right?
Can Customer Service and Marketing Work Hand in Hand?
With all of these things mentioned above, there is one lingering question that many people still ask. Will their customer service serve as their marketing tool too?
The simple answer would be: YES.
Now, the longer answer would be: YES, but…
As we have mentioned above, you can have both the marketing and the customer service team work together to achieve a common goal. However, you cannot just leave it to one team to do everything.
Now, why should these two aspects become one? Let us first look at a few statistics:
- A little over 50% of unhappy customers talk about the poor customer service of a company to around 15 people including their friends and families.
- 72% of happy customers only tell around six people.
- 67% of customers say that bad service will make them go away from a company.
These statistics tell us one thing —customers will talk about how bad a company’s customer service is more than talking about how good it is.
So, aside from the usual posts, you do on social media or the quality content you create and publish on your website or blog, you need to also make sure that your customer support is perfect and seamless.
Because if it is, you will most likely benefit from a free and effortless advertising channel for your business called the “word-of-mouth.”
Marketing and customer service are both vital aspects of an aspiring business. They serve as key pillars that will provide success to your business. But, when these two departments are aligned and learn how to work together, it can give your business that much-needed boost to earn the trust of customers and stay ahead of your competition.
