It’s a universal truth that customers expect the best of service, regardless of how much or how little they pay. In catering to this expectation, customer service – and now, customer service marketing – is becoming the focus of internal changes and improvements.
What does this mean?
When I speak about customer service marketing, I’m referring to how these two, traditionally separate functions or departments need to work together to give customers what they need. While you may be selling a product to your audiences, customer service is what underlies these efforts. Among other factors, this is one element that sets your business apart from the rest.
At a time where you have a 60%-70% chance of getting business from existing customers, compared to a 5%-20% chance of selling to new prospects, customer service marketing is a smarter and more efficient way of bringing in sales.
Let’s take a look, then, at why these strategies are growing more important for a variety of businesses.
It’s easier to leverage positive reviews/testimonials for marketing purposes
Customer testimonials and reviews are an important part of many of our own marketing strategies. Yet as any business knows, these reviews are hard to come by – let’s not even get into the difficulty of keeping these customers happy.
By integrating customer service as a part of your marketing, you ensure that your marketing is targeted at reminding existing customers that you are dedicated to making their life easy. It also tells new customers that your business is one worth taking a chance on.
In fact, 7 in 10 Americans said they’d spend more money with companies they thought provided outstanding customer service.
In this way, you can pivot your marketing strategy to the apparent and demonstratable happiness of your customers. Who doesn’t want to buy from a business that’s known to keep their customers satisfied?
Combining customer service and marketing improves internal communication
Working closely with your customer service department improves collaboration, between your teams, to make sure customers are aware of the level of service they can expect.
This is more important than it appears at face value. Not only are customer service agents more aware of existing offers and promotions – allowing them to push these out to customers who reach out to them – but it also helps you refine your own approaches by understanding how customers like to interact with your business.
Improved internal communication is always a win, in and of itself. The added benefits to your marketing strategy are just the perks that come with it.
Improve social media outreach and support
Many customers, nowadays, flock to a business’ social media profiles to almost assault them with customer service-related inquiries and questions. As a marketer, you may not be the best person to respond to these communications.
By collaborating closely with your customer service team, it’s much easier for you to provide customers with the support they need when they reach out to you on Facebook, Instagram or any other platform you’re active on.
This helps improve metrics like response time, which may even have an effect on how much or how well your customers engage with you on social media!
Create content that’s relevant and meaningful to your customers
Another strategic benefit of customer service marketing is that you have a better understanding of what the most important things are to your customers.
If you sell canned food products, for instance, what makes up the bulk of customer support inquiries? Is it your products’ certifications? The ingredients? Whether they’re pet-friendly?
By working closely with customer support representatives, you understand what you need to be addressing in your content, regardless of what form they take. Content that directly targets what’s on your customers’ minds is certainly going to result in more clicks, shares, comments, and customer engagement, on the whole.
Rethink customer service marketing to make big wins!
Optimising your marketing strategies doesn’t always mean investing in expensive new tools or engaging in expensive advertising campaigns.
With customer service marketing and by developing a closer relationship with your customer support team, you can now make little changes that go a long way. Customers want to see what’s relevant to them and service delivery that’s helpful and responsive.
Give them what they want and achieve your own goals and objectives in the process.
Struggling to nail marketing strategies that are customised to the needs of your business? At Hype Insight, our services are tailored to your business and your needs. Get in touch with us today!