Customer Service - A game changer for Marketing

Customer service and marketing don’t typically get matched up. Different departments, different duties, right? 

Well, that’s the old school way of viewing this unique relationship. 

As more businesses 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. 

Marketing and customer service should always be working in tandem to make your business better.

Here are 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. 

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. It can be hard to know what will truly resonate with your audience even in ideal situations. 

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 anymore, 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 customer service team? 

By working with marketing, your customer service 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. 

Your marketing team will continue to struggle in their quest to find good ideas without these inputs. It’s a simple and elegant solution.

2. Customer service can flesh out your buyer personas

When you’re trying to convince your ideal customers, understanding their thought processes is vital. In marketing, you usually accomplish this step by creating a buyer persona. 

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 plays a crucial role. 

Dedicated customer service teams will have to work 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. Customer service will help establish realistic customer expectations

Customer expectations are at an all-time high these days. 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. 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. 

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

Miscommunication between customer service and marketing can lead to some rather embarrassing scenarios for your business – like one department being unaware of what the other is doing. 

According to a study, 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 business sends and creates a much more positive experience in the event of any issues cropping up. 

By unifying your 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 people focus primarily on storytelling when vetting a business. That’s across all genres of marketing, too. 

Great struggles produce great stories. 

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. 

When marketing and customer service share the goal of resolving issues before they arise, that’s better for your business and your customer. 

With happier customers, you’ll have all of the benefits listed above, plus a clear direction forward. 

And when done, it will improve revenue, help your overall customer experience, and cement your future as a customer-centric business.