The divide between customer service and marketing. Customer experiences are shaped by everyone in a business, including Sales, Marketing, Service, and the back office (e.g. billing and claims management).

Even third parties, such as channel partners distributing company products, indirectly influence customer sentiment and behaviour. The rise of social media, however, has particularly diminished the lines between customer service and marketing.

Businesses and consumers use social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter to share positive and negative experiences.

A positive Facebook mention might provides a company with free marketing, likewise a negative Tweet could pollutes the company’s brand image and can result in lost net-new business opportunities.

A customer rant about a poorly handled service interaction might cost the business more in lost revenue than the incremental revenue gained by its marketing programs. Figure 1 shows that companies that align customer service and marketing programs are far less likely to observe such risks.

Companies that align service and marketing programs around the customer are truly rewarded by their clientele.

Specifically, Aberdeen Group report 55% greater annual increase in customer satisfaction rates (11.9% vs. 7.7%) than those where service and marketing operate in silos. As happy customers are more likely to be retained, buyers working with firms where service and marketing are in sync are also more loyal. In fact, data shows that these firms enjoy 7.6 times greater annual increase in customer retention rates (11.4% vs. 1.5%), compared to All Others.

In addition to being more loyal, happy buyers are also more likely to share positive word of mouth about businesses that meet and exceed their needs. To this point, companies with customer service and marketing alignment achieve 19% annual increase in the number of positive social media mentions (31.0% vs. 26.1%).

This is important, as social media has become a litmus test of sorts in helping customers evaluate product / service providers. For example, Yelp! reviews can have a significant impact on the success or failure of companies in the restaurant industry. Therefore, aligning service and marketing activities can be considered a strategy to ensure the long-term survival of a business.

Businesses that sync their service and marketing programs benefit from doing so across a variety of financial measures. They achieve 2.8 times greater annual increase in company revenue, compared to All Others (25.6% vs. 9.0%). This growth is supported by sales teams across these firms enjoying 41% greater annual growth in their attainment of quotas (51.2% vs. 36.3%).

Sellers can sell more because aligning service and marketing programs helps firms better understand customer needs that are often captured through service activities. When this understanding is translated into delivery of personalised and consistent marketing programs, brands enjoy revenue growth. To this point, companies with service and marketing alignment achieve far superior annual gains in revenue improvements from both net-new customers and client referrals, compared to those that lack such alignment.

Having seen some of the many benefits of customer service and marketing alignment, you should be asking “how” to accomplish this in your business.