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No Integration Between Sales and Support Could Leave You Doomed to Fail

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No Integration Between Sales and Support Could Leave You Doomed to Fail

 
July 12, 2016

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  By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor
 


In a former life, I was a sales person for an office equipment company. It was my first opportunity out of college and I loved the changing schedule every day, the opportunity to meet new people in each business I entered and the challenge of finding solutions that allowed me to close the deal.


The frustrating part of my job began when those who were put in place to support me in my role failed to live up to expectations. Those who were charged with offering care to my customers as part of an ongoing contract made me look bad when their delivery fell short. The primary problem was that sales and customer support were kept as very separate departments, which led to a variety of shortfalls in the market as a whole.

The more effective scenario would have been one where our two departments were working together for the best outcomes in both customer satisfaction and the potential for recurring sales. In a blog by customer support software provider, TeamSupport the limits of the linear approach are explained. The primary problem: there’s no opportunity to wow the customer and create long-term value.

In essence, if your company decides to implement customer support software as a way to optimize the customer experience, it requires a strategy around how it will align with the activities of the sales team to produce better outcomes. The support team should be funneling existing customers back to sales and increasing usage. The relationship is already there, making it easier to sell to existing customers.

When sales and support are working together, there’s a much better chance that the customer base is happy and satisfied. Properly executed customer support software and an alignment between the two departments means you don’t have to repeat investments in the marketing process or work as hard to convince customers that your company offers a variety of benefits compared to the competition. When customers are happy, increasing sales is much easier.

It’s also important to remember that customer support teams generally know a lot of insight into a customer and how they use a product. The information they capture and maintain within customer support software can go a long way towards helping the sales team create effective strategies for not only upselling current customers, but better positioning themselves for new sales as well.

One of the reasons why I am no longer an office equipment sales person is that this kind of alignment between customer support and sales did not exist. It was too difficult to ensure the company would deliver on what I had promised the customer. When this kind of dynamic exists, it’s hard to be successful.




Edited by Maurice Nagle
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