Sprinklr’s Arun Pattabhiraman discusses how brands can bridge the gap between these two capabilities.
Happy customers make strong brands. Companies that provide excellent customer service not only increase customer retention, but can also have a positive impact on marketing through message amplification, positive reviews, and strong public perception. But despite this obvious opportunity, marketing and customer service are still largely viewed as separate and unrelated functions.
CMSWire spoke with Sprinklr CMO Arun Pattabhiraman to learn more about the connection between customer service and marketing and how brands can develop a more unified approach to customer experience.
Flywheel instead of funnel
In today’s digital-first world, customer journeys become more complex and teams need to collaborate more, but there’s still a big chasm between customer service and marketing. “Marketers are trying to bring in new customers, but customer service teams are working quickly to keep customers off the phone,” he says. “The result is an inability to truly understand and serve customers.”
He added that the disconnect between marketing and customer service is becoming increasingly difficult in today’s social media-driven society. What your customers say on social media matters most, and what they say about your brand is highly dependent on the customer service you provide.
“The customer lifecycle is increasingly a flywheel, not a one-way funnel,” said Pattabiraman, saying that sales must take place at all customer touchpoints, and customer contact centers are designed to cross-sell and up-sell. He said it could be a significant revenue driver through
build connections
Pattabiraman said businesses can start closing the gap by making social and other digital media central to their customer service strategy.
“Traditional strategies and systems are holding companies back,” he said. “Customer service he leaders must approach service in a digital-first manner that integrates teams, processes, data and technology.”
You also need to make it easier for all your teams to collaborate, whether it’s your social media services team, traditional customer service team, or marketing. All customer views and data must be shared to ensure they receive a consistent experience regardless of the channel they use.
Finally, companies need the right technology to enable this kind of collaboration. Having an integration stack that works across departments enables customer service, sales, and marketing teams to access data across their various customer touchpoints.
Role of AI
Accessing customer data via social media and other digital platforms has never been easier, but turning that information into actionable insights remains a challenge. Here, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning can not only tackle this challenge, but also make these insights readily available across the organization and automate repeatable actions based on them. .
Pattabhiraman cited Microsoft as an example of a brand that uses AI effectively. Microsoft’s Social Command Center captures millions of conversations through social listening. Use AI to identify high-priority messages and redirect them to the right agent, as well as capture ideas and suggestions from your customers and send them to your development and marketing teams.
“When the product is updated, the company will let those customers know and come back,” he explained. “These customers represent the brand and systematically advocate for Microsoft products on their network.” customers organically advocate on behalf of brands and promote Microsoft products to their networks.”
Conclusion
Looking towards 2023, Pattabhiraman predicts that customer experience management will generally become more integrated as businesses replace traditional point solutions with omnichannel platforms. Looking towards 2023, Pattabhiraman predicts that customer experience management will generally become more integrated as businesses replace traditional point solutions with omnichannel platforms.
Additionally, these types of platforms also transform digital customer service by creating a unified customer record across internal and external sources. With stronger data, AI and other automation technologies become more mature and can identify actionable support tickets with over 95% accuracy.
As AI continues to improve efficiency and effectiveness, Pattabiraman said he expects customer service to no longer be seen as a cost center, increasingly driving cross-selling and up-selling revenue.
Learn more about Sprinklr’s solutions for integrated customer experience management at sprinklr.com.