Customer service and sales teams are technically meant to be two sides of the same coin and if they are made to work well together to align to customer needs; it can help improve overall brand growth and retention.
Both these teams and functions serve different purposes in any organization. But the end goal always remains the same: to meet customer expectations.
When customer service teams and sales teams work in harmony, it helps build a more customer-centric model.
Smaller teams and organizations might not necessarily have a dedicated customer service or customer support team in place, but they will have a sales and business development process and team built out in most cases.
Mid to larger organizations need to have dedicated teams that can provide round the clock assistance to customer queries and needs. In reality, while all these teams (sales/customer service/customer support) have different tasks on their plate each day, the end goal needs to align and be centralized for better impact.
Here are a few factors that can help create more unison and harmony between these multiple functions to help achieve a core objective that drives business output:
Unified Platforms and Sign-offs between Teams
A sales rep or sales executive is typically meant to close deals and contracts. A customer service or customer support team on the other hand has to ideally initiate processes and conversations that can help the sales team or brand on board and service the customer based on their need and expectations.
Having a unified CRM or CDP that can be used to shift the responsibility when needed to another team member (from sales to customer service for instance) can help keep the customer lifecycle smooth and allow a brand to deliver more value while preventing disjointed experiences.
Using the unified platform (CRM/CDP) to record every customer interaction can further this goal be allowing teams to understand how the customer has been served/what the customer’s core challenges were while using the brand’s product or service while giving more opportunity to improve on final deliveries when renewals are up for discussion.
Read More:Â Three (03!) Reasons Your B2B Sales Needs To Be Driven By You Selling As A Team!
Preventing Internal Delays
You can have the best sales people who are able to sell fast and with impact. But if a brand cannot service the customer and deliver on challenges, questions or projects on time: the customer is never going to be happy.
Both teams need to work hand in hand to find a balance that prevents internal delays of any kind. This is where it helps to integrate AI assistants or chatbots into a typical customer service cycle so that no paying customer feels like they are wasting their time when waiting on a concern or query.
Today’s marketplace demands that brands meet evolving customer expectations that primary include – better service and instant responses.
Understanding Why a Customer Has Made your Brand ‘’The Chosen One’’
Potential customers will choose a product seller or service provider for a variety of reasons: maybe because it fits a budget, because the quality is said to be good, because of peer reviews or past experiences. The list is endless.
Sales teams and customer service teams should share this insight with each other and formalize it using their integrated CRM / CDP or other central platform. This data can be used to promote/cross-sell and up-sell other products and services by the brand, it can also be used to ensure customer retention models are built more strongly to prevent churn.
Read More:Â Is a Solution Selling Based Approach More Beneficial in B2B Sales?
End Note:
A well-oiled internal process that helps sales teams, customer service teams and customer support teams work with each other to drive customer success so that they can meet their own goals with your product and service is what can differentiate your brand and service in the market.
Disjointed sales and customer service experiences can lead to churn.
A customer service team that reaches out to a customer in time and much before a contract renewal is due will have a higher chance of retaining the customer if they use the data from their CRM/CDP to drive the conversation further, for instance. A service team that does this a week after the renewal is due is bound to face more challenges as there will be a time lapse already that leads to disruption  of delivery and service.
