Sales and marketing share the same goal of driving business growth, so why do they continuously fail to achieve alignment? Freshworks has been examining the long-standing causes of this misalignment, which has been exacerbated by the 2020-21 pandemic. In our recent ‘Fix the Rift’ webinar, we explored the divide between sales and marketing, its impact, and how technology can help bridge this gap.

Improving your company’s customer experience score by just 10% can boost revenue by more than $1 billion. In fact, simply improving your Customer Effort Score, also known as CES, can have a long-lasting impact on customer loyalty. A study by Gartner found that notably, 96% who had high-effort experiences reported being disloyal, compared to only 9% of customers with a low-effort experience.

A few months ago it was time for the periodic service of my car. Now I have to say that my car could use a ride through the car wash. A few days before the scheduled servicing, I actually wanted to wash it. Then I thought back to the previous two times my car had received service. Each time I got it back cleaned and washed. “Nice! they’ll wash it at the garage anyway. ” I thought and I decided to skip the car wash. A few days later I was at the garage to pick up my car.

Think about this question—what is media relations? If you said, “Getting featured in the press,” you’ve only done half the job. Today, media relations isn’t just a one-time activity to attract investors, or get a customer’s attention. It ties in with your brand identity as much as marketing does. It matters where you are seen, when you are seen, how you are seen, and with whom you are seen.

Customer service is a key part of any business and the modern customer has higher expectations than ever before. Helping your customers extends far beyond just making a sale – customers expect businesses to be on hand to handle their queries and ensure they get the most out of their products and services. Delivering quality customer support isn’t easy, and that’s why you need to design your service strategy based on these key customer service principles to guide your team.

Asking your customers the right questions post-purchase helps you gather invaluable input and reveal opportunities your business didn’t know existed. Surveying your customers (and responding to their feedback) also reassures them about how important they are to you through the effort you take to maintain that relationship. Customers expect businesses to reach out to them and ask for feedback, but you need to make sure this feedback is meaningful and actionable.

Your customer service reps are on the front lines of your business. Every day, they’re interacting directly with customers, helping to keep them happy and even increase revenue. Unfortunately, their job is highly unpredictable. How frequently will customers reach out? How complex will their requests be? You need to make sure that your customer service agents have enough bandwidth to handle all of them in a timely manner.

The undeniable fact of the business world is that you cannot have a great product without an excellent customer support team. Yeah, you might have developed a top product, but you would need an efficient bunch of professionals to manage your customers’ queries. In these times when customers are known for switching brand loyalties often, your customer support team has to be on its toes to satisfy your esteemed clientele. Customers’ demands and expectations are changing rapidly.

As the customer service industry evolves, customers are increasingly expecting flawless customer service from companies. 56% of customers have stopped buying from a brand or switched to a competitor because of a single bad experience.1 For American consumers, that number jumps to a whopping 69%. If you want to meet this increasing demand for perfection, “hiring the right people” isn’t enough.

Successful support, technical or otherwise, thrives on consistency. Businesses that consistently have fast, accurate, and friendly support resources available will have higher customer satisfaction rates than those who are continuously slow to respond, provide inaccurate information, or appear apathetic. But how do you provide fast, knowledgeable, and consistent support while keeping costs down?