Breaking the Silos: Why Sales and Customer Service go Hand in Hand

Customer expectations are skyrocketing in an increasingly digital consumer landscape.

With social media enabling quicker, more convenient ways for customers to reach out to businesses, and with payments and delivery speeds all improving in line with consumer convenience, customers expect exceptional service as the digital transformation reigns.

In an incredibly competitive environment, nurturing your leads and your customers has never been more crucial. As businesses navigate their way out of a lingering global health crisis and make strategies for the new version of ‘normal’, it’s the time to break down the silos in your business and build a culture that focuses on alignment and unity between your departments.

Here are a few reasons we believe your sales team and your customer service team should work hand in hand:

There is knowledge to be shared

Since research by the Harvard Business Review found that emotional connections matter more when it comes to customer satisfaction, getting to the crux of what customers want and need requires real, authentic human connection. Customer services and sales are arguably the two departments of any business that have the most interaction with your business’ customers, which means they are best placed to understand what makes their customers tick.

In addition to information on what customers love, your customer support teams will know a lot about the common gripes and bug bears when it comes to your products, services, systems and procedures, some of which could be hugely insightful for the sales team.

That means, your customer service team will harbour valuable information and insights into your customer base, that your sales team aren’t tapping into (and vice versa). Building routines and processes that enable your customer service and sales departments to come together and share valuable information will help you to build a more customer-centric, collaborative culture, and carve out a more streamlined customer experience.

Optimising valuable opportunities 

Sales managers need to ensure that the sales team align with customer support agents as there could be valuable upsell and cross-selling opportunities. Even though you’ve closed a deal with a customer, they should still be considered as part of the sales cycle. It might be that the product or service they were sold wasn’t sufficient, they may want to re-order or upgrade, and if customer services and sales are well aligned, sales teams could reap the rewards.

What’s more, through analytics and monitoring of consumer patterns, customer support teams will know the optimum timings within the customer lifecycle for upselling- information that could be a goldmine for customer retention and longevity.

At a time when online reviews and social media appearances could make or break your brand reputation, building a more holistic approach to your sales cycle could help you to iron out any customer retention issues, and drive more relevant, targeted leads.

Don’t forget, sharing the insights you have with your customer services team can really help them too, and with tools such as Toucan Sales Analytics, you and your entire team could work together to break the silos and make better-informed decisions to improve the customer journey.

But don’t just take our word for it, to experience Toucan Sales Analytics first hand, click here to request a demo.