Customer Service Marketing

Telecommunication has made a rapid growth in the past few decades. It is now very easy for the people to remain in touch with each other. Same applies to business houses also. Customers can reach the Companies for their concerns and queries more easily than before through the medium of customer care.

Telemarketing in known by different names in different countries like it is called as telesales in UK and telemarketing in USA. A telemarketer is a person working in a call centre, a private office or even from home. They are people selling products or services over phone.

1. Need of telemarketing: On the basis of the products the company; you need to decide whether you need telemarketing or not; e.g. an IT based Company may need more demonstration of the product through videos etc. For products related to physical explanation like consumer durables will need physical demonstration. But yes the lead generation of these products can be done through telemarketing. Updating the customers for the schemes, discounts and other related offers is done through customer care centres. Earlier customers were found reluctant calling the customer care as it was very tedious to keep the phone call on hold for a long time to reach the customer care employee but due to development in this area people are found adaptive to this medium now.

2. Training of call centre employees: Training is a very important part for any call centre. Employees of the call centre are the basis of your business and the way they behave with the customers will lead to the success of your call centre. A call centre employee should inevitably be a patient listener and a soft spoken person.  Selection of the employees needs to be done with utmost care. It is needless to say that the communication skill needs to be good and they need to be trained well in maintaining their COOL while dealing with angry customers. Well trained staff will turn out to be a blessing and money spent on training will definitely give you good results.

3. Build a content focused website: Well-designed website is important for any business and your well managed website will do primary representation of your brand. Content in the form of videos, images text should be done in manner which creates interest in the mind of viewers and they are tempted to move further to other pages of your website to explore more. It should be user friendly and compatible with both mobile and desktop versions, easy to navigate and fast in order to give a hassle free browsing experience. Content should be data driven and authentic. Keep sharing your good work and success stories in order to build the trust of the viewers. Some websites ask for the visitor’s name, email address, contact details in order to get in touch with them in future. You can also use the same to increase your customer data base

4. Active on social media platforms: Popular social media options like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram etc are the best platforms to advertise your business and your presence here is like a compulsion now, it has to be. No business fails to advertise on these platforms and hence you are no exception. You really need to work hard to stand out of the crowd and make efforts to leave an impact on the mind of the viewers. The content you post here should be relative, attention grabber and portraying your good work. Sharing regular success stories in handling irate customers, happy customers will help people to have trust in your Company. Nevertheless the content should not be repetitive and boring after some time. You need to engage a professional for advertising. In this competitive world of marketing in order to survive you need to put in efforts to always leave a mark in the mind of the customer.

5. Omni channel strategy: It is basically introduced to provide a seamless shopping experience to the customers whether they are shopping via mobile, laptop or desktops. More and more customers are relying on digital communications, like email, text messaging, Web chat and social media, in order to interact with your business. Multichannel contact centres give customers the flexibility to choose the method of contact that makes the most sense for them at any point of time, and requires your organization to provide the same prompt. With the right tools, you can make sure your business is prepared to meet these evolving demands. Today a customer’s journey may begin on one channel, valuable insight and feedback from the customer is taking place completely different channel. Hence synchronising all together is important and same is possible with the Omni channel technology

6. Team up with marketing team: Call centres are working both as service providers as well as lead generators. It is very important that the call centre and the marketing team are working in good coordination with each other. What is the lead generation to final sales ratio is very important and now with the developing technology it is possible to monitor the same and find out the gaps between the two. Regular training will be needed to get good results from both the teams. You need to ensure that all the leads are entered in a system which is called CRM (Customer Relationship Management) in order to figure out call to lead generation ratio. A tracking system is available for all the work related to call centre with the help of different technologies; but you need to ensure to utilise the same in an appropriate manner to get fruitful results at the end.

7. Customer feedback: Digital marketing world is ruled by customer satisfaction. Regular feedback needs to be taken from customers. Specially complaining customers’ needs to be attended promptly and later….on resolution you should ensure to collect the feedback of the customer whether he is fully satisfied or not. A dissatisfied customer leads to greater loss as he will be sharing his experience with other and such type of mouth publicity will work in a negative way for you. Customers even tend to share their feedback on social forums and these can be read by all. People using social media and purchasing online have a habit of checking the reviews before ordering or contacting; so you can’t afford to ignore them. On the other hand any negative feedback coming in needs to be taken positively and efforts should be made in order to fix them at the earliest. Due to development in this area now it is possible to analyse the feedback on the number of calls done and received data and figure out the gap which was not available earlier and rather call centres did not bother to analyse the same. But now all the data is available and it can be used in a fruitful manner to bridge the gaps for more success of your business

8. Transition to cloud: Cloud computing technology has proven its benefits all over in the digital marketing world. In order to provide flawless services call centres invest a huge amount on solutions, technology and infrastructure to provide flawless customer service. This technology provides flexibility and scalability. Call centre services require continuous up gradation in order to be in line with the demands of the customers and to survive in the increasing competition. Cloud makes it easier to add new functionality in a cost effective manner. The function also allows the call centre employees to work from any location, even from home.

9. Smart phone friendly app: Increased used of smart phone has overtaken the usage of desktops and laptops. It is a must that your website is accessible and that you have a mobile app which is user friendly and downloadable on all devices. People should be able to raise their queries and concerns easily on the phone calls. Doing this will lead to more number of inquiries as mobile phones are always handy and mobile apps can be easily downloaded. Number of calls for queries can also be reduced to a considerable extent as the mobile apps will be providing the option to raise the query for Frequently Asked Questions rather than every query to be diverted to the call centre to speak to the customer service executive. Time saved of the call centre employee can be utilised for another productive purpose like for calling for increasing sales, resolving customer complaints etc

10. Monitor all channels: As suggested to apply omni-channel strategy for the day to day working of the call centre; you need to ensure to monitor all the areas of operations else all the money invested will not lead to providing you good results. Due to advancement in technology you have options to monitor all these areas with facts and figures and it is far easier for you than earlier methods of working. Weekly reviews of all the teams should be conducted in order to check that all the teams are working in coordination with each other and loopholes if any to be filled in promptly.

Digital marketing is a vast field which needs continuous up gradation as per the changing trends of the market and needs of the customers. To survive in the competition you have to be very vigilant about the development areas and working for your staff, technology and the management of the call centre.