Running a business is not easy, be it big or small. Generally, small businesses are underestimated because of their limited resources and clientele. Moreover, small businesses are stuck in the same loop where they have a limited budget for scaling, which affects their profit keeping them restricted.
On the contrary, large businesses have a lot of resources, better reach, and networking opportunities. All these things help them grow at a much better pace, earn more profit, and eventually steer the small businesses out of the market.
So, should small businesses just give up when they have so little to spend on marketing, networking, and scaling? Well, there is no simple answer to this.
Starting a business is already risky, but quitting midway means losing your investment, efforts, and time.
If marketing budget is your main concern, here are some of the best ways you can explore to utilize customer support as your marketing channel.
Use Social Media
Social media is one of the best places to market your brand. However, most people do not realize that social media platforms are perfect for customer support as well.
Most of the brands have a strong online presence on all digital platforms and through these channels, businesses get to learn about the top trends within their niche, expectations of their customers from their brand, and competitors working within their niche.
Apart from this social media is ideal for sharing reviews, so brands can easily learn about the customer experience via these apps.
However, relying on just one social media platform is not enough, as you need to build an omnichannel experience instead. For instance, spectrum is an excellent example of an omnichannel experience. The brand offers 24/7 Spectrum customer service via social media, text, email, and phone.
Learn Their Lingo
Customer support is all about communication. Right from the moment you ask their problem to the time you resolve the issue and ask for feedback, everything relies on smooth communication.
In most cases, customer support is trained with technical information. They know the jargon, technical terms, and details that most customers might not even know about. On the contrary, the marketing tone of any brand is set according to its target market.
If the brand wants to utilize customer support for the sake of marketing, it is very important for the team to learn both technical and marketing aspects.
Apart from this target, the market also plays a very important role. For the longest time, customer support teams were trained to use formal communication methods. However, now that Gen Z has entered the market, more brands prefer a friendly, informal tone.
Ask Questions
Data is one of the most important parts of running any business.
Most big brands understand this and use sophisticated technology to extract and scrap customers’ data. This data is then used for targeting potential customers, bringing more leads, and reaching sales targets. However, for small brands with limited budgets, accessing these data scraping tools is very challenging.
This is where customer support comes in. The customer support department works as the frontline communicator at any company.
They get to know about the frequently reported issues, information about common technical queries, and even the expectations of the customers. All these details are crucial and can be used to market products better as well as targeting potential customers.
Use Latest Technology
Technology sits at the core of any business. While big businesses have a lot of money to spend on their overall infrastructure and technology, small businesses have a limited budget to spare. Consequently, customers feel unheard and not valued.
However, now the budget is not the issue as more AI-based free platforms have been launched. These platforms are free for smaller teams, but charge a hefty amount for the bigger brands.
Moreover, AI is becoming increasingly popular among small businesses with limited resources.
Companies can now use AI-based chatbots as well as assistant agents to automate their simple customer support tasks. Most AI bots also have automated response function, which ensures that the company maintains a minimum response time.
Rely On Organic Reviews
Reviews work as the backbone of any business in this digital era. The majority of the customers now start by checking the reviews and this eventually helps them to understand the company, their goal, the quality of their product, and overall utility.
Through customer support, your company can easily get feedback after every interaction. This feedback can be a customized quiz, an open-ended review, or even a survey form.
Online reviews are an ideal tool for marketing. Majority of the customers today rely heavily on the reviews to evaluate the brand. Moreover, word of mouth has proved to be a much better marketing strategy than paid or sponsored promotions.
Simply put, small businesses generally do have not enough budget to spare on extravagant marketing campaigns. However, in this digital age, a powerful strategy can easily beat the budget. These above-mentioned tips should help you scale your businesses even with limited resources.
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