Digital marketers need great customer service too

I'm exhausted. I need a sit down.

That’s how you feel when you’ve been keeping an eye on multiple support tickets.

Let's start at the beginning though:

Offering great customer service has always been a business differentiator - even if, way back when, business owners didn't consciously acknowledge it as being a business differentiator.

It could have meant the difference between buying your bread from Bill the Baker or Burt the Baker:

Bill grimaced as you as you parted with your penny, whilst Burt asked you how your day was, threw in an extra roll, and gave you a smile.

Good old Burt.

It was about relationship-building, offering value for money, delivering what the customer wants, and really getting to know the customer -and their needs - personally.

Guess what? It’s still about ALL of those things.

More recently, the concept of customer service has expanded further into the realms of 'customer experience' - popping out it's own acronym baby (CX). Businesses have spent gazillions on transforming and upgrading their customer service hubs - for example, integrating their capabilities into their owned digital channels - so that they continue to meet customers' expectations. Even more recently, an increasing number of businesses and organisations have invested more and more in UX; hiring expertise to lead on this aspect of digital - which is great.

It’s true. These days, if we want help, we go to the company's site, and most of us dare to presume there'll be a quick and easy way to speak to a customer service adviser through a 'chat now' option - or a redirect to a customer service-dedicated Twitter or Facebook account. And if we don’t want to chat to someone straight away, we still expect to find what we want via a quick browse.

It's just how it is now. 

According to Bain and Company, businesses that grow their customer retention rates by as little as 5%, typically see profit increases ranging from 25% to 95%.

If you’re working as a digital marketer of some sort, having access to the right account support at the right time can be critical to a business's brand, campaigns, financials and reputation.

For example, your role might be to support your employer or clients with things like:

• Managing and developing all of their digital channels

• Creating, editing and promoting great content

• Attracting, capturing and nurturing leads.

And… we will commonly employ a large number of digital tools to help us do all of the above; social media schedulers, SEO tools, survey-builders, content planning tools… you could even include your trusty CMS in the equation.

They need to work well all the time, so if one or more of these tools or platforms stop working, it can mean the difference between something being launched/sent/promoted on time - and missing deadlines, missing the boat on publishing something when it's most timely, or even wasting/losing the organisation precious £££. It's also exceedingly frustrating when you’re all poised to push the button on something and it crashes/freezes/refuses to obey.

I've signed up and paid for access to many platforms and snazzy tools over the years – and, sooner or later, I've hit some kind of problem with most of them.

Your first reaction is to reach out to someone for support (and/or hit your head against the keyboard). I’ve often felt a bit short-changed when it comes to getting a tech, billing or account issue resolved promptly and efficiently.

Why is that? Is it because companies think we're only interested in what the platform/ tool/plug-in does for us? Maybe. But we need the full package - the product AND the aftercare (dear vendors… don't forget, we work in digital, so we're most likely to notice what's missing from a ‘support experience’!).

Access can be a problem

The level of accessibility to customer support may be the main stumbling block. The assistance you receive in the end may be great, but it’s a struggle to be noticed at first, when you try and raise your hand for help.

Common issues:

• The support ticket is submitted, but there's no response - or the response is too slow

• The mobile site isn't responsive for customer service purposes like it is on desktop - e.g. live chat doesn't work

• The relevant url links, or the overall customer journey is broken somehow.

‘Quality’ of support can vary wildly

I've come to realise that the quality of customer service really does differ massively across tools and platforms. You just never know what you're going to get.

Don't get me wrong, I've experienced some great support, some of the friendliest responses ever, some super speedy resolutions to tech issues.. but it seems to be wildly variable - and to my surprise, some of the worst customer experiences have come from some of the biggest business names in digital.

You only have to look at some of the major social media platforms, and you're entering a world of multiple help menus and forums. And then there’s the popular "let the community answer your tech query for you" approach some use. When you think about it, it only puts another layer in between you and the 'official' support team. Maybe you can find your answer in a forum, but will you have to wade through several threads first in order to drill down into what’s matching your query?

Some issues will continue to endure

Another thing I’ve noticed is that I can end up going back to raise a ticket on the same thing, multiple times. The problem may be common to many, yet the platform in question has made little to no progress in resolving the underlying cause.

It’s bonkers, because it means they’re spending more money in wasting the time it takes to resolve the same issue again and again, and possibly with floods of people.

Us digital marketers rely on great customer support too.

It doesn't matter whether you're working freelance, in-house or as part of an agency - when the customer support you need is lacking, it means that campaigns and projects can end up being interrupted, damaged or even ruined by those poor levels of service.

Digital marketing is not just about attracting leads and nurturing them into customers – we also use digital as an ‘enabler’ to retain customers for the long-term. We need to be able to issue the right message at the right time, and in the case of customer retention, the ability to do this effectively is critical to a business’s reputation and credibility.

Digital marketers need to be thought of in the same way by their suppliers - i.e. you need to try your best to keep us happy.

A not-to-be-sniffed-at proportion of us will hold the purse strings on a business’s budget, so there's everything to play for (the average firm is expected to allocate 41% of their marketing budget to digital marketing, and this rate is expected to grow to 45% by 2020).

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