You've analyzed your market and identified a problem your products or services can remedy. You've painstakingly penned a direct mail letter that sells your solution so persuasively that you can already hear the clicks, chirps, and slurps of eager buyers and donors completing transactions online, over the phone, and through the mail. And, you've created, printed, and mailed your campaign on time and within budget. Now you can relax and wait for the responses to roll in.
Or can you?
While you've completed all the critical steps from a marketing perspective, you're only half of the equation: you still need the support and follow-through of customer service.
Remember our friend, discussed in this month's enewsletter, who received an amazing direct mail offer from her car dealership? Despite initially having doubts, her husband called the dealership and then she went in to discuss a trade-in, hoping for a generous offer on their current vehicle--as alluded to in the letter--and expecting a hard sell from the sales staff. She got neither. The salesman offered a trade-in value far lower than Blue Book value, handed her his business card, and told her to call him if they decided to pursue a new car. The in-person experience lacked all the urgency, exclusivity, and hype of the letter and left our friend feeling insulted and a little resentful.
For your offer to succeed and, more importantly, for your clients to feel satisfied and confident in your company, marketing and customer service must pursue the sale with the same enthusiasm and information.
Keeping customer service and marketing in sync doesn't have to be a time-consuming task, and it doesn't have to mean a big meeting for every campaign. It can be as simple as appointing one customer service representative as your go-to contact and including that person in your campaign planning, particularly for new products, special promotions, or complex offers. Doing so not only allows customer service to understand the product/service/promotion before the mailpiece goes out, but it also provides you with an opportunity to see your campaign through customer service's eyes and spot any potential hiccups.
When you're planning "special" campaigns, keep in mind the impact they'll have on customer service. Too many special-needs or time-sensitive campaigns, especially too many at one time, could leave your the department overwhelmed and stressed out. The result could be a grumpy salesperson with little interest in making a sale.
