Have you ever considered customer service as marketing? Marketing is often considered to be synonymous with advertising. But is it? Is there more to marketing than print ads, broadcast ads, and direct mail? Websites and social media are often simply used as digital billboards. Poorly written white papers and blogs end up being reworked sales literature. One function essential to every business that is often overlooked is customer service.
More important than the trend in social media in capturing and retaining customers, your customer service may be the most important and most invisible element of your entire marketing strategy. And make no mistake, customer service is part of your marketing strategy whether you deliberately include it or not.
Public relations, advertising and spin will not make-up for a poor customer service experience on the part of your customers. Word-of-mouth (WOM) remains the most effective marketing tool available to any enterprise, and bad WOM will damage your business.
Don’t underestimate the importance of customer service in generating good WOM. Other than the actual performance of your product, customer service is what customers will talk about. And if your product is a service, it is the only thing they will talk about.
Good customer service begins with the right attitude and a focus on meeting the needs of customers. But it is enhanced by excellent customer relationship management (CRM) software. Using CRM software do build and maintain a relationship with your customers and track the quality of service you provide may be the most important marketing tool available to your business. It may also be the most cost-effective aspect of customer service.
To employ customer service as marketing more effectively, choose CRM software capable of maintaining, tracking and improving the quality of your customer service.