Some of the most effective marketing can happen outside of the CMO’s office.  (Fellow CMO’s be warned!)  Every day, your customers choose a very special “opt-in”—they call into your Call Center asking for help, reporting an issue, or making a request.  Every time they call, chat, or email, a personal encounter transpires and the customer’s perceived brand image is shaped.  

How often is the marketer left out of this sacred event?  The answer is, most of the time.

In small to mid-sized B2B companies, customer service is commonly an operations-only activity, missing the prime opportunity that each customer encounter presents.  Meanwhile, the marketing department is hustling to generate new customers with expensive media buys and SEM tactics.

Imagine however, if some of marketing’s central concepts were applied to customer service operations.  What if customer service agents were trained and motivated to execute every encounter as an opportunity to influence the customer’s brand perception?

Remember the last time you called the customer service 800 number for one of your vendors?  Essentially, you cared about two things: Did I get my problem resolved and was the process painless?

If your answer was yes—cha-ching—a positive touchpoint was made.

Each time you call and get your answer with virtually no pain.  Cha-ching—another positive touchpoint.

With every positive experience, your customer recommits to your brand. This increased brand strength leads to repeat purchases, increased sales volumes and my very favorite . . . referrals of your business to your customer’s friends and colleagues.

But ensuring repeat performances that “hit it out of the park” is easier said than done.  And that’s where technology plays a role.  A robust CRM system can give call center agents a memory bank of data from past customer interactions.

“Hi Mr. Customer.  Yes, I see that you have experienced this issue before.  Let me walk you through a different approach.  I’ll stay on the line to make sure this approach is successful.”

Or . . .

“I’m glad I was able to answer your questions, Mr. Customer.  By the way, this month we’re celebrating your second anniversary with us.  And thank you for your recent purchase of 10 widgets.  We find that wally-wags go nice with widgets and we’re currently running a sale.  In fact, I can give you an extra 10% off since it’s your anniversary!  Can I add the wally-wags to your account?

Now that’s marketing at its finest.

Even if you don’t see an immediate increase in revenue, here are three reasons why customer service operations should think like marketers anyways.

1. Happy customers buy more. Happy customers tell their friends.

Initially, at EPAY Systems our reason for putting a bit of marketing into our customer service was to prevent defection. And as the annual numbers came in, low and behold, we not only saw the improved customer retention we were hoping for, we also found that we could count on our customer base for a greater percentage of our revenue.

2. Personal encounters with customers are a rare and fine gem.

In today’s world of smartphone mania—texting, Facebooking, Tweeting—it’s really quite rare to receive a call from an actual person.  With a robust CRM, a customer service agent has all the tools to make the call an exceptional experience.  Beyond solving a customer’s issue, additional “soft touches” make a world of difference.  Take for an example, the technology available through companies like Mattersight. Their technology identifies the caller before they reach an agent and uses behavioral profiling to route the caller to the best agent suited for the caller’s profile, making the experience more memorable and pleasurable.  Even if that type of technology isn’t available for your customer service operations, every call is an opportunity for your agent to bond and connect with your customers.

3. Customer service hears the pain and sells the gain.

On many calls, customer service agents go deep into the weeds; he gets to hear all the customer’s pains and challenges associated with a particular problem.  I hate to say it, but a customer’s pain can be a good thing--challenges and pain points present opportunities.  With the right training, an agent can seize that opportunity, right when the customer is feeling the pain the most, and upsell/cross-sell him right there on the phone.  If a more subdued approach is warranted, he can release a series of automated emails to introduce the customer to a potential solution over time.

Though it may be difficult for marketers to find the time and/or the resources to apply marketing to their customer service organization, it may produce results that outperform customer acquisition campaigns.  This is a playground that B2B marketers shouldn’t forget.

About the Author

Michelle Lanter Smith is the CMO of EPAY Systems, Inc.—a leading SaaS provider of workforce management solutions—and speaker on “Marketing Your Sweet Spot”. She’s helped companies like IBM, American Family Insurance, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Walgreens land new customers and grow their business through integrated, experiential campaigns. Prior to joining EPAY Systems, Michelle was the founder and CEO of Hi-Impact Marketing, where she grew her business from a bootstrapped consulting start-up to a million dollar integrated marketing and sales agency. Follow Michelle on Twitter @m_lanter_smith.

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