Customer service and customer relations are necessary for small businesses across various industries. Both elements are designed to work together to keep your customers loyal and satisfied. Whether you own a med spa, salon, or medical facility, you must invest in both functions to ensure your customers are happy with your offerings and keep coming back for more.
If you’re a small business owner with a tight budget or a small team, you may wonder if investing in both initiatives is necessary. The truth is, you can’t have one without the other. Both functions play a key role in the customer experience and are needed to grow and scale your business.
Here’s what you need to know about the difference between customer relations and customer service:
What is Customer Service?
Customer service addresses inbound inquiries, complaints, and issues. Whenever a client calls or emails your business asking a question or addressing a concern, it’s your employee’s responsibility to resolve the problem as efficiently as possible.
The purpose of customer service is to find solutions, resolve issues, and answer questions or concerns about products or services. Customer service reps are equipped to handle and manage a variety of questions or concerns. They also fully understand your business’s ins and outs. Your customer service representative is always there to lend a helping hand, listen to customer complaints, and ensure your customers have a positive impression of your business.
What is Customer Relations?
Customer relations is about building meaningful customer relationships and converting them into long-term buyers. With customer relations, businesses take a proactive approach to engage with customers to encourage repeat business.
Instead of waiting for your customers to reach out to you, your team will reach out to them with surveys, follow-ups, and other marketing materials. These initiatives can improve customer retention rates and help you better understand your customer’s needs. Customer relations can also help improve the customer experience and refine workplace strategies.
3 Differences to Know as a Business Owner
If you’re new to the world of customer service, you probably think that customer service and customer relations are interchangeable terms. However, there are key differences between the two. Here’s the main differences between customer service vs. customer relations:
1. Goals
Customer Service:
The goal of customer service is to address concerns and find resolutions. When a customer calls or emails your business to discuss a problem or a complaint, your customer service representatives are ready to address the concerns.
Customer Relations:
The goal of customer relations is to nurture customer relationships and turn one-time purchasers into loyal, long-term customers. Customer relationship managers do the outreach to specific customers, checking in to ensure their needs are met. They use engagement tactics and marketing resources to increase satisfaction and improve customer loyalty.
2. Approach
Customer Service:
The customer reaches out to customer service to address questions and concerns, and the interactions are considered reactive. This means most interactions don’t occur unless there’s an inbound request to address.
Customer Relations:
Customer relations is a more proactive approach and requires more of a strategy to form meaningful customer relationships. You’ll likely use a variety of marketing tactics, such as loyalty programs, follow-ups, and customer surveys, to keep customers engaged and satisfied. Customer relationship managers may also use email or SMS marketing to send follow-ups and surveys after someone makes a purchase.
3. Responsibilities
Customer Service:
Customer service is responsible for answering questions or concerns, processing returns, or confirming order details. These interactions typically happen over the phone, email, or a live chat feature on your website.
Customer Relations:
Customer relations works closely with your sales and marketing teams. These interactions include creating client engagement emails, customer surveys, or developing a loyalty program. These interactions are considered more strategic and can help you gather meaningful feedback about your customers.
The Benefits of Customer Relations and Customer Service
Incorporating customer relations and customer service into your day-to-day is the best way to ensure your customer’s needs are always met. With both tactics, you can create a positive experience for your customers. You can also look forward to:
Improved Customer Satisfaction
Keeping your customers happy at every stage of the sales funnel is the best way to improve customer satisfaction and retention rates. Happy customers are more likely to continue shopping with your small business. They are also more likely to tell others about their experience with your company, which can help boost word-of-mouth marketing in your community.
Boost Profitability
Customer service can help address problems in real time, ensuring that your customers don’t take their business somewhere else because of a complaint or issue. Customer relations is focused on nurturing these relationships one step further to boost profits and customer lifetime value. Together, both functions can help you improve profitability and encourage more sales.
Increase Retention
Customer relations and customer service work hand in hand. Keeping customers satisfied can boost retention and encourage repeat purchases. It can also help you reduce churn and build trust with loyal customers. When a customer is satisfied, and their needs are met, they are more likely to continue working with your small business.
How Townsquare Interactive Can Help With Both
The best way to improve client communication and maintain a happy client base is to incorporate both customer service and customer relations into your workplace strategy. With a strategy for both, you can ensure your customer’s needs are being met at every stage of the sales funnel.
Whether you’re trying to improve your approach to customer service or customer relations, Townsquare Interactive is here to help. Our business management platform is designed to help you manage and communicate with clients more effectively.
You can use our platform to engage with clients, track communication, and better understand their needs. It features tools for automated email and SMS marketing, appointment scheduling, invoicing and more.