Customer service marketing: customer service as a marketing tool

What is customer service?

First, let's clarify exactly what we are talking about. What is customer service? 

Our definition of customer service: Customer service is the process or processes in which customer questions are answered through (in)direct customer contact. Customer questions in this can be questions from customers but also from potential customers and even ex-customers.

Customer questions in the broadest sense of the word. Examples include:

• General questions such as questions about specific products or services.
• Pre-purchase questions such as questions about the ordering process.
• Questions during purchase such as orders or help with purchase decisions.
• Post-order questions such as questions about the shipping, delivery, and/or return process.
• Questions when using or commissioning the service or product.
• Complaint handling throughout the process of being a customer.

Customer Service is the department in which customer inquiries are generally handled centrally by customer service agents. Other names for customer service are Customer Contact Center (KCC), Customer Service or Call Center. Call center often has a slightly different meaning here because it is often associated with an outside agency that deals with telemarketing.

Clearly, customer inquiries are generally not caused by customer service but by other departments or processes such as marketing, sales, purchasing, etc. etc. etc.

What is good customer service?

Our definition of good customer service: Good customer service is customer service where customer contacts are handled qualitatively and quantitatively well enough to contribute positively to the customer experience.

What customer experience is and why we believe it starts with good customer contact read here. Good customer service meets customer expectations. This includes things like accessibility, choice of channel and answering customer questions as fully as possible and in one go. Very good customer service not only meets but exceeds these expectations wherever possible.

Quite apart from the external component (customer experience), good customer service is also very important internally. The input from customer questions can of course be used to optimize your internal business processes. In other words, if you know exactly what is going wrong based on customer questions, you can of course do something about it.

What is marketing

Marketing is the process of promoting sales. Marketing literally stands for "getting your hands on the market. Marketing is aimed at getting your hands on the largest possible market share. There are all kinds of strategies and opportunities for that. Responding to customer needs is fairly important in this regard, in our opinion. If you want to influence the market and create or stimulate demand for your products or services, you need to know what your potential customers need. The moment you have customers you want to know what you can do better, where things are going wrong and how to make it as pleasant as possible for your customers to become and stay customers with you. Customer service markerting is something that we believe is part of that.

Where does customer service marketing come together?

If marketing is all about responding to customer needs and customer service is a central department where customer inquiries come in, then the importance of customer contact in a marketing mix seems obvious. But there's more... Customers generally don't contact customer service when everything is clear, products or services are working and nothing is wrong. No, customers contact customer service the moment things go wrong. Where marketing too often focuses on encouraging purchase, it is generally customer service that resolves problems after purchase (aftersales).

That's where the importance of customer service marketing comes in. Good customer service adds to the customer experience, bad customer service detracts from it. Marketing has long ceased to be just about gaining market share. One of the first marketing lessons is that acquiring a new customer is 7 times more expensive than retaining a customer. So customer retention is at least as important as acquiring new customers.

Summary

Marketing is all about getting your hands on market share. Good customer service makes you less likely to lose your customers. In addition, good customer service helps you get to know your customers better because you listen to them. Therefore, if based on the input your customer service can provide, you then continually adapt your business to your customer's needs then you are actively working on your marketing. So customer service marketing is a powerful tool!

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Customer service marketing: customer service is a powerful marketing tool