For the modern business, it’s essential to understand how these are intertwined. Smart businesses have already started to make the connection. In fact, a recent Booz & Company study found that 75 percent of marketers who use social media to engage customers see customer service as a primary component of their use of the platform.
When trying to find harmony between these departments, here are a few things you should bear in mind:
1. Offer Social Media Support
Oftentimes, social media management falls exclusively into the hands of a company’s marketing department. However, marketing departments are rarely as well trained as customer service departments when it comes to interacting with customers directly. While it’s not unreasonable for social media management to be thought of as an extension of marketing, don’t exclude staff from your customer service department.
The easiest way to get staff collaborating on social media projects is with the help of a social media management tool like HootSuite. Through the help of social media management software, you can be sure that communication from customers via social media will be handed off to the appropriate member of your organization.
2. Create New Content
Marketers know better than anyone else how important it is to create new and engaging content. The toughest part of creating dynamic new content all the time, however, is when you’re running low on fresh topics to cover.
This is where customer service department employees can work with marketing. Customer service representatives know better than anyone else what customers are saying, what their interests are and what they want from your business. Consider getting members from customer service and marketing together regularly to share ideas.
3. Set Expectations
Encourage your teams to work together to establish clear expectations with your customers regarding your business’ products and services. Customer service hears complaints when customer expectations of products are unrealistic, and, more often than not, those expectations were set by cavalier marketing.
When you operate a small customer service call center, this sort of data is easy to collect and analyze. So if customer service is still desk-based, consider expanding into a cloud-based call center. When customer service shares this information with marketing, they can work together to modify advertising campaigns to help set more realistic expectations with consumers.
4. Promote Success
Customer complaints and unfulfilled expectations are not the only thing that your customer service department can share with your marketing department — they can also share when customers have been pleased with your product or service.
Customer service departments are often the first to hear customer success stories and identify positive testimonials. Furthermore, customer service is often in the best place to select customers who might make ideal case studies for marketing projects.
Marketers should inform customer service representatives about any initiatives that involve customer outreach, so that your customer service department can reach out to regular loyal customers on marketing’s behalf. The most powerful tool at your disposal when trying to enmesh customer service and marketing is communication — the more that your departments interact, the more they can compare notes and brainstorm about how best to engage with customers in a way that translates to sales.
