It’s only natural for B2B businesses to look at sales and marketing alignment from a revenue standpoint, but there’s another huge benefit to better alignment that has less to do with your bottom line. Customers get a vastly improved user experience from seamless service too. Better customer care is a win/win, earning you more revenue per customer and gaining you a host of enthusiastic brand ambassadors while delighting your buyers.
Here’s how we unite sales and marketing for a more powerful customer care strategy.
Define Your Vision
What’s your sine qua non of customer service? How do you define excellence in customer care? How do you bring buyers back for a lifetime? The more specific you are in outlining your customer care vision, the better you’re able to deliver it. Maybe your hallmark is speedy service; if that’s you, then your customer service vision might include answering every call within three rings and improving your chat bot to provide simple solutions immediately. If bespoke service is your distinguishing characteristic, linking sales and marketing data so every communication with your leads is personalized might be your top priority.
Connect Effectively
Customers love it when they get to set the tone and level of interaction. Quality interactions are more important than quantity, so listen to your leads when they tell you what they want. Preference pages allow them to define the frequency of contact and customize their relationship with you. Don’t be afraid to hand your leads some power; creating a dialogue instead of talking at your leads is the smart way to do business.
Some companies mistakenly assume that automated lead gen and customer service can become impersonal. In fact, automated systems are a huge boon to customer care. Using a marketing automation system that takes care of routine tasks frees your sales and marketing teams to handle personal interactions and gives them the data they need to address leads’ needs more precisely. With automation, you deliver a higher standard of service every time you connect with your leads.
Timing Is Everything
The right communication at the wrong time can be worse than no contact at all. Think about the last time a waiter asked you how you’re enjoying your meal just after you take a big bite of it, and you’ll see what we mean. You want to anticipate your lead’s next move without getting too many steps ahead.
How do you know where your leads are in the decision-making process, and how can your sales and marketing communications affect it? With your MARKETING AI® gathering behavioral data and putting it into context for your sales and marketing teams, you can get a remarkably clear idea and act accordingly. Analytics show the most commonly traveled paths buyers customers take on their buying journeys and let marketers meet them at every intersection with guidance to the next step. Lead scoring tells you when prospects are getting closer to a buying decision and alerts the sales team to prepare for contact. Working together to get the timing right shows your customers you’re paying attention.
The Human Touch
Your MARKETING AI is brilliant in many ways, but it isn’t a substitute for human interaction. Leads need to know there’s a person on the other side of their interactions with your company – ideally a person who knows who they are and cares about their needs. Demonstrate to them that you’re listening with customer service that draws on a wealth of lead data and sales history.
Your customers may never know about the work you put in to align your marketing and sales teams for them, but they’ll see the results in outstanding service.
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