For decades customer service and marketing have been entirely different balls of wax. What recently changed is the connectivity between technology, online, and consumers. People no longer have to write a strongly worded letter to the customer service department when something is not right. Today, they can simply log onto yelp.com and leave their reply for the entire world to see. In this highlighting customer service blog, we discuss why this is a good thing and how to show off your best features.
Two Sides of the Same Coin — Marketing and Customer Service
Twenty or thirty years ago we just had customers. Today we have customers who are looking, evaluating products, who actually buy something, who provide feedback on products and services, who come back to buy again, who tell all of their friends about the bad and the good. We no longer have just customers. We have a customer chain and different types of marketing that speak to the wants and needs of customers all along that chain. Customer service plays a part in how effective marketing is in that customer satisfaction plays a very large role in the success of marketing, the development or redesign of products, and as beacons that show new customers how and why a product is good or bad.
How Do You Highlight Your Customer Service in Your Marketing?
Big question, but the answer is relatively simple — Show rather than tell. Even if your company has a poor customer service record you can show how you are improving that record and show how customers are responding to those changes.
1. Use Visuals:
- Infographics are a great tool to show customer service as a positive for marketing.
- Add a carousel of positive comments so customers can read what other customers had to say about their experience with your products, services, and staff.
2. Make it Easy
- Provide a link to each referral site that you use. These include sites like yelp.com, yellowpages.com, etc. There are industry specific sites that do referrals such as bestdoctors.com
- Encourage customers to leave feedback. The goal is for customers to leave organic feedback and the more feedback companies receive the better.
3. Say Exactly What You Mean
When it comes to marketing tell prospects exactly what they get, when it comes to service and guarantees. This is something that can go into an infographic, become a slogan or keyword, and be very much part of marketing. Examples might include:
- 24-hour customer support and 100% delighted guarantee
- 95 percent repeat customers
- 58 percent of customers refer their friends
Short statements like these are easy to convert into a visual. They make outstanding keyword phrases and slogans. They are easy to support with facts and figures.
Marketing is about attracting people or visitors to a product. Customer service is one of the tools that businesses use to keep customers coming back for more products or services. The two are not that different at all. That is because of some significant changes within the business landscape. The old definition of a customer came from the newsprint and printed ad era. Those days you simply threw a picture of something in front of a million people and hoped that some of those people were interested.
Today, we talk about buyer personas, target markets, local search markets, and even mobile markets — there are not just customers, but special customers. By highlighting customer service as part of your marketing process you can cater to these specific populations. The idea is to hone your marketing points of interest into something that increases in value because of customer service. The reward is not just an increase in sales, but a customer base that does your selling for you. This includes referrals of friends and family and customers who are proactive champions — that sling your marketing slogans on customer referral sites.
The question for you is this: How marketable is your company’s customer service? Ensure you provide the kind of customer service your clients will rave about by being there for them 24/7 with Map customized customer support outsourcing solutions.
Sources:
https://www.brandwatch.com/2014/06/customer-service-and-marketing/
http://www.business.com/marketing/customer-service-as-a-marketing-strategy/
https://www.zuora.com/guides/moments-truth-6-stages-customer-lifecycle/
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