Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service are the three pillars on which rests the success of your online store. While the sales team converts prospects into customers, the marketing team finds the best way to convey the value behind your product. Together, they help you differentiate yourself and avoid having to compete on price.
Finally, it is up to customer service to keep up with customer expectations and create a great post-purchase experience for them. It is tough to imagine growth without everyone playing their part flawlessly. However, there are many different priorities that can drive the 3 teams apart from each other.
It isn’t hard to see why. Each team has its own reporting hierarchies, workflows, and KPIs. In most companies, there is little to no interaction between them on a day-to-day basis.
The result: a silo mindset affects genuine collaboration between sales, marketing, and customer service. If it’s any consolation, the situation is the same in almost every organization. And, here is where the opportunity lies!
If marketing, sales, and customer service work to a common game plan, they could spot new growth opportunities much more consistently. This could dramatically change customer experience for the better while boosting sales and referrals in the long run. A fundamental shift in thinking is required so that small businesses- and online brands, in particular- can build trust and loyalty with their customers based on transparency, value, and empathy.
4 Reasons Why Your Customer Service Should Team Up With Sales and Marketing
Here are a few reasons why it is critical for customer service to work in tandem with sales and marketing:
1. Building an authentic brand
Customers place a lot of value on authenticity and integrity today. A study by Stackla, a leading User Generated Content (UGC) platform, found that 57% of customers regarded most marketing content as inauthentic. This explains, at least in part, why some customers think that most brands are somewhat disconnected from reality.
The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the market inside out and customers are reacting by simply switching to other competitors.
For example, customer service agents often complain that the sales team sells to customers by promising features/benefits that are exaggerated or grossly misrepresented. When the customer eventually finds out, customer service agents often have to go to great lengths to retain him or her.
Customer service agents cannot be expected to constantly troubleshoot problems that are of another team’s making. When communication channels are open, information from customer support can flow easily to marketing and vice versa. This can enable each team to get a better appreciation of each other’s priorities and enable them to provide an authentic, seamless customer experience.
The result: The customer gets the same information at every touch point along their journey with your brand.
2. Improves returns on investment
A conversion-driven strategy can often lead e-commerce businesses to take their eyes off their existing customers. According to a study, only 13% of all businesses focus more on retention while 44% prioritize new customer acquisition. To meet the businesses’ revenue goals, spending more on marketing may seem like a sensible thing to do. However, the potential impact of customer dissatisfaction – manifesting in the form of negative reviews and declining average order size- can affect returns on investment.
By integrating sales and customer service into the decision-making process, the marketing team can get first-hand information about customer needs and tailor their campaign accordingly. They can then evolve a marketing strategy that “sells the value” instead of selling on the basis of price.
This can help it get improved buy-in from customer service for any new campaigns. You can also expect improved margins due to improved customer lifetime value.
3. Higher average order value
A quick question: when are customers most likely to buy a product related to the one they just added to their cart? At check out, of course! The marketing team will surely want to go all out and woo the customer with exciting offers in a bid to boost order size.
However, unless typical questions relating to shipping costs and returns are answered, the customer may be reluctant to click on product recommendations. Providing a live chat option can avert the possible loss of revenue worth thousands of dollars.
In addition, nearly 40% of visitors abandon a purchase as they are still undecided about buying now versus later. Creating a follow-up loop with the sales team can help you close a sale that could have otherwise been lost. It is clear that marketing, sales, and customer support must work in close coordination for all of this to happen.
Experts recommend integrating CRM tools with helpdesk software to enable them to share information seamlessly. This can help you map the entire customer journey from start to finish and create compelling reasons for customers to click ‘buy now’ and ‘make another purchase’. The top 20% of your most valuable customers deserve an exclusive experience. By working in sync with customer service, the marketing team can create spot offers for them and multiply sales.
4. Customer service is “everybody’s job”
Sales and marketing teams can often have their own agendas which can be at odds with customer service and vice versa. The general tendency is to regard the needs of internal customers- teams operating under the same roof but belonging to a different function- as secondary to their own. Nothing can be further from the truth.
Managers need to ensure that sales, marketing and customer service team members spend more time understanding each other’s perspectives so that they can reach business goals.
Last Words
Marketing and sales have more in common than customer support. More often than not, this keeps them from interacting with each other as much as they should. However, customer support is often the last line of defense when customers have negative feedback to offer about their experience at the pre-sale stage.
By working as one team, customer service, sales and marketing can not only anticipate potential problems but also provide honest answers to customers.
If you are looking to scale your customer support team, Helplama can be the ideal partner for you. Our team of outsourced customer support agents are based in the US and are trained to quickly adapt to your brand voice and tone. Our Zero-Risk Guarantee gives you the ability to pick and choose from among a variety of flexible plans without having to commit to a long term contract. Interested? Contact us for more information.
