If you’re like most businesses, you have a “support” link on your website where your customers can contact you with product issues or questions. It’s likely you’ve even built out a support team trained to minimize any fallout from these problems.

If that’s the case, it’s time to call everyone into the conference room and let them go. Seriously. Your company doesn’t need employees that work solely in ‘damage control.’ Say your goodbyes and have them box up their stuff.

Oh, but before everyone leaves the building—you’ll want to hire them all back.

In the marketing and sales department.

I’m exaggerating, of course, but the truth is that many companies need to change their mindset when dealing with customers. Customer service is not about pacifying users who have problems. It’s about building your brand, and no other department has such a unique opportunity to do so.

After all, your service reps interact directly with real-world customers and potential new users more than anyone in the company. They know the specific needs of customers, and they have a natural introduction to talking with people about your company. Without spending a single marketing dollar, your company has a built-in audience that can be easily reached to grow your business.

When your representatives start seeing themselves as marketing staff instead of troubleshooters, they can turn questions and problems into opportunities. They can listen to what the customer wants or needs and:

1. Educate customers about your company
2. Upsell your products
3. Build buzz for upcoming product releases
4. Promote upcoming conferences, webinars, and events
5. Offer special pricing promos
6. Generate leads that can be used for case studies and testimonials
7. Build your brand as one that consistently gives more than customers ask for

With a little training and effort, you’ll find that your customer service staff could be a primary driver of sales and new users.

And when you get to that point, the only real problem you’ll have...is that you’ll need to call all those traditional marketing staff into the conference room!

This post was originally published on Desk.com.