From the outside looking in, the customer service and marketing verticals of a contact center operation couldn’t appear more different. One focuses on driving profit, while the other seemingly supports it. For the longest time, companies have separated the two functions, seeing them as highly individualistic elements that had no bearing on each other.
Over the past few decades, however, with more and more organizations understanding the value of synergy, the trend has started to shift. In this post, I’m going to be talking about why these two areas coming together is a match made in heaven. Plus, some best practices to make this dynamic relationship work.
The Benefits of the Customer Service & Sales and Marketing Pairing
In an article discussing customer service and marketing teams working together, CustomerThink highlights common goals as one of the key reasons that these two elements should ideally join forces. When the whole idea is to obtain new customers and retain existing ones, strategic alignment makes business sense.
In real-world terms, we can talk about a common example of consumers connecting with customer care agents to discuss a marketing promotion they heard on the radio, only to find that the customer care division didn’t receive a brief and were unaware of it.
When consumers encounter scenarios like this, they go through a range of emotions – disappointment, mistrust, and amazement at the lack of functional harmony. In this sense, having the synergy is a prelude to creating an exceptional customer service experience.
Another key point to consider is that both sets of skills (i.e. customer service & sales and marketing) overlap to some degree. Your salesperson has to be consumer-friendly, while your customer care agents create an environment that’s ripe for both marketing and sales.
Best Practices for Creating Synergy
People (Communication & Collaboration)
One of the best ways to establish synergy between customer service and sales & marketing is to create open channels of communication and opportunities for on-going collaboration. In an article about marketing and sales teams working together, Forbes discusses a specific example of having both teams on board in the development and management of a marketing and promotions calendar.
Taking this step further, from an operational perspective, the collaboration enables sales teams to understand and anticipate potential issues and concerns that can arise from the customer service side. The customer service team, on the other hand, gets the necessary intel to manage consumer expectations as well as internal resources to funnel leads effectively.
Processes (Creating a Framework)
The processes aspect looks at aligning business goals to support the development of synergy between the customer service and sales teams. In more practical terms, some of the things that processes consider are mission and vision statements, KPIs, scorecards, and the sharing of best practices with each other. Needless to say, the process workflow between the two entities needs to be streamlined to ensure that the individual moving parts work well together in a seamless manner.
Technology (Supportive Systems)
Another spoke in the wheel is technology. The technological component looks at your existing tech systems to see how best they can be utilized and optimized to support the synergy. Needless to say, communication and on-going feedback are essential to ensuring that the systems that are being deployed enable easy engagement between both sides.
CH Consulting Group provides unparalleled expertise in the Contact Center and Customer Experience (CX) verticals. We have a nationwide team of industry veterans that can assist you to achieve exponential growth, manage change, and generate profit. For a comprehensive CX assessment and strategic plan customized for your unique business needs, connect with us here today.
