The Importance of Integrating Marketing and Customer Service

Established and growing businesses have one thing at the back of their minds–customer satisfaction, which promotes business growth. Customer satisfaction is enhanced by the organization's consumer services and marketing skills. They form the basis of customer-business relationships. 

Organizations' customer service and marketing teams are usually different, except for small businesses. Infusing marketing with consumer services through cloud contact center software is essential. This will guarantee optimum results as a smart organization.

Nowadays, one of the methods of marketing available to an organization is social media marketing. Businesses that do not use these platforms are losing out on potential customers. Social media represents the online presence of many businesses. As much as they are publicity-oriented platforms, they can also serve as customer care platforms.

Are you unsure about why you should incorporate your consumer service with marketing? Do not fret, this article is for you. We have curated reasons to merge your consumer service with marketing and how you can go about it.

Top 6 Reasons You Should Integrate Marketing and Customer Services

Here are the top seven reasons you should integrate consumer services with marketing.

1. Better Consumer Engagement

Combining marketing with consumer service lets you know who your customers are. This is made possible through their feedback on contact center software. You can tailor your brand's activities, contents, products and services to suit the increasing needs of your customers. This will promote better interaction, increased purchases and referrals. 

Using a cloud contact center software can make this easier because it helps garner your clients' feedback easily. This tool also helps you provide cloud call center solutions or contact center solutions for them. Agents can use a browser to access the software on a laptop or desktop with a headset and phone system.

2. Customer Service Represents the Brand

Customer care activities are the physical expression of what you have sold out to people during marketing. You should fuse the customer care department with the marketing department. This ensures that they are properly trained on the brand's promises and consumer expectations. So that customer care will continue to meet the client's needs.

3. They Both Share Similar Goals

While marketing and consumer services seem different, consumer satisfaction is the driving force between them. The desire is to make customers happy enough to patronize and refer the business to others and maximize profit. 

So, as the marketing team works to bring in customers for the business, the consumer service retains the customers. Therefore, you should merge both teams. If the tone of voice or graphics drew the customer in, they should maintain that.

For instance, if a client was gained through an Instagram ad, the client expects the website's tone of voice to match Instagram's.

4. To Save Cost and Time

Merging customer care and marketing teams helps you save costs as a business. This is because you do not have to make separate payments for both teams. You just make the same payment.

In addition, it saves time as there is no need to educate the consumer service on a change in the company's brand tone. For instance, when the teams are merged, they respond if consumers contact the organization via cloud contact center providers.

They use the organization's brand voice and double as the marketing team. Customer service would be able to communicate effectively through cloud call center solutions.

5. Understand Your Customer Better

Merging both teams helps you understand your customers better. The organization's customer service knows who the customers are, they speak to them and interact with them.

The marketing team, however, has an idea of the customer in their head and is to reel them in. Joining them together helps the company maximize the brand's knowledge of its target audience. In addition, it also helps the brand know how to harness its branding strategy to get and retain them.

6. Collaborative Communication Promotes Good Results

Once these departments are in sync, sharing the brand’s vision and message with consumers will be easy. There should be an open line of communication between the marketing and customer service team. 

Both teams are to check one another’s customer engagement skills to maximize the brand's relationship with customers. For instance, when customer care communicates with clients and listens to their concerns, they share this concern with the marketing team and vice versa. 

How to Integrate Marketing and Consumer Service Strategy

Here are ways you can integrate marketing and consumer services strategy in your organization:

1. Unify Your Brand Messaging

Let your brand voice and tone be similar across all platforms. This helps your customers see your brand as a credible one to be trusted. Once a customer decides to buy from your brand after an ad, they call the front desk and expect the same vibe they got from the ad. Customers see your brand as one and not a division.

However, if customer care has no idea of the ad's content, the customer might lose interest as they might see the brand as unreliable or fake. Hence, align your marketing and customer service team with a unified brand message to have a uniform front for customers.

If time will not allow you to hold a physical meeting to keep both teams up to date, employ contact center software solutions.

2. Use Cloud Contact Center Software to Promote Effective Communication

You can access advanced cloud contact center solutions such as CRM integrations, Omni channel routing, and analytics with cloud contact software.  It enables both departments to create a communication line between themselves.

3. Content Creation

Your customer service team listens to your customers' complaints daily, they know their pains, concerns, and struggles. Rather than let the marketing team work independently to generate content ideas, let them seek ideas from customer care.  

They can relate stories to them of clients' confusion, questions, and complaints. These can be used to create content that clarifies doubts and answers their questions.

4. Share Responsibility Between Both Teams

Encourage both teams to take responsibility for consumers' experience with your brand. This would drive them to do better and work together. You can notify them that they are responsible for the organization's conversion rate, retention rate, etc.

Final Thoughts

When you integrate your marketing and consumer service team and strategy, you present a unified brand image to the world. This helps your consumers enjoy similar experiences, builds trust in your brand, and improves consumer satisfaction. 

You can create a live chat for every customer service and marketing team member in your organization. Do this using cloud-based cloud contact center software to foster their merged work experience.