How much thought do you put into your company's customer service? Every single employee is a representative of your company. Each employee-customer interaction reflects the company's brand and reputation. Customer service is actually a part of inbound marketing, and an extremely important part at that. When companies start to recognize customer service as marketing, it allows them to build their brand and improve the overall customer experience.
Customer service is a part of an often overlooked, but nevertheless crucial, stage of inbound marketing: delight. Inbound marketing doesn't stop at the close of your sale. Great companies go beyond the purchase and focus on the experience, continuing to nurture the relationship so that the customer shares their positive experience with others. The delight stages help with future sales, up-selling, and building your brand's reputation. Amazon built its brand around customer service, making "customer obsession" their first leadership principle.
Customer service takes on many forms, from online interactions like live chats, social media, and email, to phone calls and in-person conversations. Every one of these interactions is a part of the customer experience and can be negative or positive. It's an opportunity to delight customers. Each employee behind this interaction represents the company, from the sales team and marketing department to the tech support specialists. HubSpot found that companies that prioritized customer service had growing revenue because happy customers organically grow your business by sharing their positive experiences with others.
"89% of companies now expect to compete mostly on the basis of customer experience," according to Gartner Research. When it comes to customer loyalty, a company's brand and reputation are more important than ever before. Customers want to be treated like individuals, not a number or dollar signs, and interact with other humans. Customer service team members must be empathetic, putting themselves in the customer's shoes, and really listen to them and care about the situation. Friendliness and being personable are also essential skills, which is why customers want to interact with a human, not a robot. The goal is to make customers feel valued, respected, and heard.
Every interaction an employee has with a customer, whether through chat, in person, or over the phone, affects how the customer views the brand. The customer experience can be negative or positive. The customer experience doesn't end with the purchase; it's important to follow through and delight customers post-purchase to increase loyalty and boost the likelihood that they'll share their positive experience with others. Customer service is marketing and a valuable opportunity to create happy customers who keep coming back and hopefully share their love through social media and word of mouth. For help with marketing in every form, contact the experts at Ironmark, and see how well our customer service team can serve you.