Customer Service or Bust in Marketing

Ok, so a lot of people think that customer service is just answering phones and dealing with people and their problems; well, yes, it is partly that but there is so much more to customer service. Good customer service has the power to be your most potent form of marketing; if you do not agree, let me explain.

Marketing is all about the ability to gain exposure for your brand and company among all the other companies out there who are also trying to gain the attention of the consumer. There are clever forms of marketing and there are poor forms of marketing; even the good techniques used in marketing sometimes fail to execute as well as planned. When a marketing plan goes as well as the marketing team thinks it will, it's amazing but does it really transfer to sales? To gaining more market share? Perhaps, but think of it this way: you're out walking somewhere and you see some great guerrilla marketing and it gets your attention (say it's a clothing store). So you go to the store and try to buy some clothing from them. When you walk into the store, the clerks are punks but you buy the shirt anyway; you find at home that it doesn't fit so you go return it but now they have a terrible return policy. Would you stay as a consumer of that brand? No.

Companies with poor customer service are 5x more likely to lose a customer than companies with good customer service. Why do you think companies like Apple have such a cult following? Yes, they do a fantastic job of marketing their products (which are good) but other companies have equally great marketing and other electronic companies have as good of products. They are the giant they have become because people want to stick with Apple because they have phenomenal customer service. They orient their stores, their products, and their return policy towards the consumer. For example, a buddy of mine had his volume button on his phone break so he went in to Apple with his broken phone and planned to just have it fixed (warranty expired, mind you); the store decided that fixing that one tiny button was not worth the extraordinary price it would take to fix it so they gave him a new one, no

questions asked and for no cost.

Another example of fantastic customer service is seen at Chick-Fil-A. The staff asks if you need a refill. It's a fast food restaurant and they ask YOU if you need a refill. Then, get this, when you're done eating, they bring your garbage to the trash can for you AND then they say, "My pleasure" when you say "thank you." You do say thank you, right? Isn't that fantastic? Now, they do make one heck of a chicken meal (especially with those waffle fries) but they wouldn't sell a single menu item if they hurled insults at you while you ate (there's a restaurant in Chicago that does this but they're joking, I mean if places did it seriously & wasn't part of the theme).

At an internship I did last year during my senior year of college, the company did not have bad customer service but they were not known for having good customer service. This caused the company to have quite a poor impression with their consumers. Well, it was a food service company and with the budget from the client, they couldn't improve the quality of food without forcing the client to increase the budget, so what we did was improve customer service; what happened was the staff became friendly and personable. You know what happened? Well, the food was still poor but people liked the company after a month or two because they realized how friendly and appreciative the staff was for the customers to eat their food!

As a Chicago Marketing company, we know the different aspects of marketing and how they impact each other. All the aspects are important but customer service might reign supreme. As a creative agency, we can help your company with any marketing need and we will even do it with a free consultation.