When it comes to advertising, customer feedback is an often-underutilized goldmine. Your customers provide real-world insights into what works, what doesn’t, and how your brand is perceived. Unfortunately, most marketing agencies overlook a vital resource that: your customer service department.
By encouraging collaboration between your marketing agency and your customer service team, you can create more relevant, high-impact advertising campaigns that resonate with your audience.
The Value of Customer Feedback in Advertising
- Authentic Insights
Your customer service team interacts with customers daily, hearing their questions, complaints, and praises firsthand. These interactions provide real insights into how your products or services are perceived and what customers truly care about. - Addressing Pain Points
Customer service feedback highlights recurring pain points, whether it’s product misunderstandings, missing features, or unmet expectations. Marketing campaigns can use this information to address these issues proactively, improving customer satisfaction and trust. - Unfiltered Reactions to Ads
Customers often share their opinions on advertising directly with customer service. Whether they find an ad confusing, misleading, or inspiring, these reactions are invaluable for refining campaigns. - Language That Resonates
Your customers’ own words and phrases can inspire your marketing copy. By mirroring how customers talk about their needs and experiences, your ads can feel more relatable and authentic.
Why Marketing Agencies Must Consult Customer Service Before Making Changes
- Prevent Misalignment
Marketing campaigns that don’t align with actual customer experiences can create confusion and dissatisfaction. Customer service can ensure that advertising accurately reflects the product or service being promoted. - Avoid Wasted Resources
Launching a campaign that doesn’t resonate with your audience wastes both time and money. Customer service feedback reduces the guesswork, helping agencies focus on strategies that deliver results. - Enhance Campaign Relevance
By consulting with customer service, agencies can craft campaigns that speak directly to customer concerns, desires, and expectations. This relevance increases engagement and improves ROI.
How to Foster Collaboration Between Marketing and Customer Service
- Regular Meetings
Schedule regular meetings between your marketing agency and customer service team. These sessions can be used to share insights, review campaign performance, and discuss customer feedback. The meetings should happen at least quarterly. - Feedback Loops
Establish a feedback loop where customer service reports key trends, complaints, and positive feedback to the marketing agency. This can be done monthly to ensure insights stay current. - Joint Training Sessions
Conduct training sessions where the marketing agency learns about customer service tools, processes, and challenges. Similarly, train customer service representatives on basic marketing principles to bridge the knowledge gap. - Centralized Data Sharing
Use a CRM or data-sharing platform to centralize customer feedback. This allows the marketing agency to access relevant information without waiting for formal reports. - Collaborative Campaign Reviews
Before launching a new campaign, involve the customer service team in the review process. They can identify potential misunderstandings or inaccuracies and provide suggestions for improvement.
Real-World Examples of Customer Service Feedback Improving Marketing
- A SaaS Company
A software company discovered through customer service that many users struggled with its on-boarding process. Marketing responded by creating a campaign that highlighted simplified on-boarding features, leading to a significant increase in sign-ups. - A Retail Brand
A clothing retailer learned from customer service that customers often asked about size and fit. The brand’s marketing team added detailed sizing guides and visuals to ads, reducing returns and boosting customer satisfaction.
The Risks of Ignoring Customer Service Input
- Missed Opportunities
Without customer service insights, agencies miss opportunities to address pressing customer concerns or highlight underappreciated features. - Damaged Credibility
Inaccurate or irrelevant ads can damage your brand’s credibility. Customers are quick to call out discrepancies between advertising promises and reality. - Inefficient Campaigns
Without direct customer insights, campaigns rely on assumptions, increasing the likelihood of wasted ad spend.
The Bottom Line
Your customer service department is more than just a support team—it’s a direct line to your customers’ thoughts, needs, and opinions. By ensuring that your marketing agency collaborates with customer service whenever changes are made, you can create advertising campaigns that resonate deeply with your audience. In the end, listening to your customers is the simplest and most effective way to improve your marketing efforts.
