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 queries are answered through (in)direct customer contact. In it, customer queries can be questions from customers but also from potential customers and even ex-customers.

Customer questions in the broadest sense. Think of:

• 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 queries 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 queries are generally handled centrally by customer service staff. Other names for customer service are Customer Contact Centre (KCC), Customer Service or Call Centre. Call centre often has a slightly different meaning here because it is often associated with an external agency engaged in telemarketing.

Clearly, customer queries are generally not caused by customer service but by other departments or processes such as marketing, sales, procurement 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 think it starts with good customer contact read here. Good customer service meets customer expectations. In particular, this includes things like accessibility, choice of channel and answering customer questions as well as possible and in one go. Very good customer service not only meets but exceeds those expectations wherever possible.

Quite apart from the external component (customer experience), good customer service is also very important internally. The input from customer queries can of course be used to optimise your internal business processes. In other words, if you know exactly what is going wrong based on customer queries, you can obviously 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 aims to get your hands on the largest possible market share. There are all kinds of strategies and opportunities for this. 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 we think 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 queries 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 solves the 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. So if, based on the input your customer service can provide, you then keep adapting your business to your customer's needs, you are actively working on your marketing. Customer service marketing is therefore a powerful tool!

Even more collaborative

Customer service marketing: customer service is a powerful marketing tool