I recently came home from a convention with some of the best, and worst, examples of customer service through marketing I have ever seen. Let me preface this with the fact that I won’t name names, but I will give examples of both. I also want to clarify what I mean by Customer Service through Marketing, but before that, so we are on the same page, let me explain what Customer Service is as defined by, the great, Wikipedia:
According to Jamier L. Scott. (2002)[1], “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_service)
When you provide a marketing piece that requires the user to follow an action, or call out, and somewhere on that marketing piece you provide clear, and helpful, instructions or tips…to me you’ve provided Customer Service through Marketing.
Personally, I believe that your marketing pieces, both physical and digital, have the ability go transcend the elevator speech type format they are traditionally used for. When those geniuses of marketing decided to turn those pieces into a way to do more for the person holding them then just a sales pitch…they have gold. When they try too hard, and reach for the sun too soon, they end up leaving a bad taste in the potential clients’ mouth that ends up resulting in…well, you know, negative press. And unless you’re all ready a star…bad press is bad press.
So let me get the bad out of the way first. The hotel I was staying at recently touted that they had a fast internet connection in every room. They had signage at the front desk, in the room, when you turned on their TV, and on every marketing piece I got my hands on. After all this I’m seriously excited because, since it’s a hotel, I am expecting an experience greater than I get at home.
Now it doesn’t matter much to me that they didn’t offer wifi, paid or not. It also wasn’t that big of a hassle to reach in the cramped desk drawer push past their additional marketing pieces, and religious paraphernalia, to find the cable to connect my laptop to their…well…router.
Where they earned a Customer Service through Marketing FAIL was in their log in screen to sign up for the internet service. I try to log in and I’m having difficulty because the “Discount Code” they offer me for staying in the room, not that I would actually have access to their internet services outside the room, wasn’t working. Their Sign In screen offered a “Live Chat” service for help. I opened it and typed my concern. What came back was clearly automated. How do I know? After getting frustrated at the clearly pre-scripted as I began to type anything from “How did the chicken cross the road” to “Why can’t you help me” and the response back was “I don’t know the answer to your question. Please retype your inquiry”. The only thing “Live” about it was the human being sitting on my side of the laptop getting ready to rip the Ethernet cord out of the wall and run down the hall screaming to find a local Starbucks (located in their hotel lobby that does offer limited free wifi).
Clearly they assumed an automated FAQ cleverly disguised as a chat feature was more than enough Customer Service, because their front desk was even less help giving me the same responses that the automated prompt gave.
The hero of Customer Service through Marketing ironically the airline I flew home on. This airline was offering new in-flight wifi, at a cost, but they were offering the first use free. I was met at the gate by a young lady wearing a t-shirt with the phrase “Ask me about free wifi on your flight”.
I followed the first activity, in a series, that the airline hoped would enhance the experience enough that I would to engage their product. Their hope paid off, because the attendant informed me about the new service. Once I said I would give it a try, she gave me a card, the size of a business card, which had all the information of the service on one side and the complete instructions, including discount code, which would allow me to use their service on the other.
Once we were in the air, I tested out the service. I was more than impressed to know that their instructions were more than crystal clear. The wifi service even had a chat based Customer Service feature that, surprise, had a human being on the other end. I got all of my questions answered about which flights carried wifi, terms of service, and, since I am not a regular flier, a list of their payment plans which ranged from per flight to monthly basis. Needless to say, but I will be using their service again once I fly out on that airline.
The main reason, if not obvious, that I chose these two to talk about is that they are polar opposite examples, of the same service, of Customer Service through Marketing. One showed that they were only willing to go so far to increase the level of customer satisfaction that their service offers. While the other showed they valued their customer every step of the way.
The question I leave you with is this, dear reader, do each of your marketing pieces increase the level of engagement, and satisfaction, that your customers have with your product, service, or brand? Or are you simply providing just enough information to get by.
As all ways, thank you for reading and stay wicked.
As overseer of all things editorial and champion of the overall user experience, Michelle works as Communications Director for 
