Customer service is a vital part of not only the customer experience but also the success of a business. It doesn’t matter through which channel customers ask for help, it needs to be executed well. Get it wrong and a lot of other pieces of the customer experience and the customer relationship with your brand will fall apart. Ninety-six percent of consumers around the globe believe customer service is an important factor when it comes to brand loyalty, according to a Microsoft study.

It's the season of giving new Zendesk app integrations. Learn all about how these new integrations can ease workloads for your sales and support teams.

Measuring sales success isn’t as simple as it sounds. There are many ways to assess sales numbers and customer growth, so the task can quickly become overwhelming. Before you know it, you have contradicting statements and you’re forced to start all over again. This is where KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, are essential. In this piece, we’ll discuss what KPIs are, which KPIs to use in certain situations, and how to implement KPIs in your sales team.

No matter how successful a business is, every company is going to find moments where they need a sales boost. It might be towards the beginning to build a customer base, or somewhere down the line when sales are slow. This is the time for a sales promotion. In this piece, we’re going to discuss what a sales promotion is, the types of sales promotions, the pros and cons of using them, and the best strategies for your company.

Even though most of us hear "sales" and jump to the image of an individual buyer in a store, it turns out that the majority of sales money doesn’t come from customers but from other businesses. In fact, B2B sales are projected to bring in approximately three times the revenue of B2C sales by 2023.

Most businesses think they have a good sense of whether sales are up or down, but how are they gauging accuracy? With shifting budgets and different departments needing more or less from the company every month, having a precise account of every expense and how it relates to future sales is a must. That’s where the percentage of sales method comes in handy.

Customer support agents are your business’ eyes and ears. They know what your customers need, what they expect, and what they think about your product. Meanwhile, if your organization is in the tech or software industry, developers are its backbone. That means collaboration between these teams is inevitable. But few businesses have clean, clear workflows for this kind of teamwork. Usually, it depends on an ad-hoc system of emails, hidden documentation, and in-person meetings.

Sales and customer service should be a natural fit. Both teams work to create successful customer interactions and move the company forward. It stands to reason that they should easily support one another—unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. Because sales and customer service (CS) teams are focused on different metrics, they rarely interact with each other. Sales teams, for instance, key in on sales metrics like win rates, while CS keeps an eye on tickets closed and CSAT.

When you think of measuring your company’s success, what markers come to mind? Perhaps you consider revenue KPIs or customer enrollment. Maybe you dream of your run rate increasing as your cost of sales decreases. No matter what success looks like to you, it’s unlikely you measure it in sales volume. But perhaps it’s time to start. Sales volume is a largely overlooked measuring tool, but its benefits to your company can’t be ignored.

There’s no perfect approach to sales psychology. Sales tactics are ever-changing based on the market, your products, your company, and your customers. That said, most sales tactics fall into either a hard or soft sell category, and understanding the difference between those categories is crucial to your sales success.