Does your Organization Ensure Linkage Between Marketing And Customer Support?

Do you know whether your organization ensures linkage between Marketing and Customer Support? Your customers do. Here's how.

Your customer responds to a banner/email/chat/phone call advertisement. The person they interact with has no idea of the product or service, so the customer does one of the following.

a) Hangs up/disconnects/closes browser
b) Waits patiently
c) Waits impatiently while the customer support agent finds someone who might help
d) Uses Google to find another source for the product or service

If your customer's solution is either "a." or "d." you have missed your window of opportunity to acquire or retain that customer. This results in wasted marketing budget and lower customer satisfaction.

This scenario takes place when Service Centers and the Marketing department don't work together to jointly plan marketing programs. Some companies think they can get an edge on the competition by moving the Service Center to the Marking department, but just making this move doesn't ensure that the customer service team will be ready when the marketing for the latest product or service generates the first customer response.

Each customer marketing initiative requires a significant investment of resources to generate the desired customer response, and each customer touch point is a moment of truth for that initiative. Your company has only a small window of opportunity to successfully deliver the message and convey why it matters to the customer.

Here are some Best Practices Strategies to consider to prevent situations like the one above as well as to integrate your Service and Support Organization to deliver value for your Marketing spend.

1) Design success metrics, measures and customer satisfaction surveys based on methodology, i.e. response rates, conversions, sales and customer acquisition.
2) Jointly plan for the important dates: mail drops, banner ads, TV, print and email blasts to plan staffing and training needs. Include outbound contacts if needed.
3) Plan agent training to include scripting, scenarios, FAQ's, and tools required to successfully complete the transaction.
4) Ensure IVR/VRU has correct messaging and routing set up prior to first call. Test.
5) Include customer service agents in the process for Voice of Customer insight.
6) Establish formal cross-organizational feedback processes between all key stakeholders. Agenda items include performance, recommendations and action items to make the necessary adjustments to ensure program success.
7) Ensure the end-to-end initial marketing through completed transaction process drives brand awareness, recognition and linkage to products and services.
8) Determine whether you will survey customers, and if yes, that you measure overall program success and opportunities for improvement.

Your Service and Support Organization and Marketing departments can deliver your desired program results when they jointly plan programs. These programs are even stronger when they include success measures and intentional plans for service delivery.

Les Hyde has an extensive leadership background in customer service and IT operations with two Fortune 500 companies and the United States Air Force. He holds a B.S. in Information Systems from Park University, an MBA from University of Phoenix, and numerous technical certifications. He is an active board member of the Kansas City Association of Customer Contact Professionals (http://www.associationccp.com/) and also serves as the Vice President of Marketing.