Learn the importance of after-sales and how to control this process

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After-sales service begins immediately after a customer closes a deal with a company, and requires as much effort as the prospecting and sales phases of your product or service.

Think about it for a moment: what is as important as selling? It is certainly delivering what was negotiated with your customer, regardless of whether you are selling a product or a service, right?

It is after the purchase that the consumer gets to know in practice the quality of the company and its service, that is, it is at this point that he decides whether to remain a customer or whether he needs to look for a competitor.

After-sales service is essential to ensure customer loyalty. Therefore, it is necessary to work on processes and the internal team so that everything is aligned to achieve the same goal: taking care of the customer to win them over, ensuring a positive experience with your product or service.

Now, you might be wondering: how do I do this in practice?

Continue reading the article to understand more about the importance of having an efficient after-sales service and see in practice how to use Bitrix24 CRM to control each stage of the customer service journey.

How to provide efficient after-sales service?
The main objective of after-sales is to retain and build customer loyalty through a set of measures that the company needs to take to make this experience positive.

In summary, we can associate after-sales with the following purposes:

Delight the customer;
Provide support for needs related to the product or service;
Provide a positive experience with your company, which influences new purchases;
Strengthen the brand among current customers, turning them into promoters and thus reaching new buyers.
To provide efficient after-sales service, you need to have a good strategy, which makes your business remembered by customers due to the good experience it offers and this extends to after the purchase.

You don’t need to invest heavily to offer effective and differentiated after-sales service. You can implement some good practices, adapting them to the reality of your business. Here are some examples:

Have communication channels: make communication channels available according to your audience. Think about which channels your customer is on, whether it’s WhatsApp , social media, email, or others. The most important thing is to talk to your customer effectively and reach them.
Understand your customer's needs: there's no point in having an after-sales structure without understanding the basics. Do some research to find out what your customer needs and which products or services from your business can be applied to their reality. This helps you predict failures and provide solutions when necessary.
Solve problems quickly: no one likes to wait, especially when we have a problem with something we bought, right? Don't make your customer wait too long or go through unnecessary bureaucracy. This causes frustration and only creates detractors for your brand.
Commitment: deliver on what you promised when the sale was made, and more than that, make sure your team is aligned and prepared to provide the best service.
Maintain the level of quality: at all stages of customer contact with your company, it is important to maintain the level of quality, from customer service to delivery of the purchase. The customer needs to be treated uniquely, before, during and after the sale.
Complement what you deliver: take the opportunity to offer complementary services or products to increase customer satisfaction;
Use data to your advantage: keep a database always updated with your customers' information, from when they first had contact with your business, when they were a lead, interactions with your company, to the entire negotiation and after-sales process.
Track results: have performance indicators to know what is working and what can be improved. Also monitor customer satisfaction through questionnaires during after-sales service.
Remember: building customer loyalty means delighting them. This way, in addition to buying from your company again, they will become brand advocates, promoting your brand for free and mentioning the qualities of your product or service to other people.

How soon should I contact you for after-sales service?
As the father of marketing, Philip Kotler, says, “winning a new customer costs 5 to 7 times more than keeping an existing one” and, therefore, paying attention to what happens after a customer makes a purchase from your business is as important as selling to new ones.

However, don't confuse making a simple phone call or sending an email after the purchase. The fact is: efficient after-sales service means cultivating a long-lasting, quality relationship with the customer.

Therefore, it must be approached correctly. After-sales customer service should not be done randomly, that is, without a plan or criteria.

The truth is that there is no one-size-fits-all recipe for business, and the time frame for contacting customers after the sale is related to the strategies that the company will use.

Each business must create its own personalized strategy, reflecting the company's image, taking into account the profile of its customers and the type of product or service it sells.

If your company sells a service that requires support, it is important to have an SLA with the maximum time the customer needs to wait until they have a response/solution to their problem, for example.

Now, if you sell a product, you can send your customer usage information, conservation tips and how to maintain it, among other content that helps them use the product in the best way.

Although the deadlines for initiating contact are relative, there is a standard concept, called the retention funnel or post-sales funnel , which helps to structure this area in a practical way:

Adoption: from the moment the customer starts using the product or service. At this stage, you can send a thank you email, a welcome email or tips on how to use what they have purchased from your company.
Retention: here, the customer already has impressions about your brand, so it is the perfect opportunity to collect feedback through NPS research, send content and make yourself available to serve them whenever they need it.
Expansion: at this stage, the customer is already willing to do new business. Create estonia telemarketing data personalized offers and take the opportunity to send cross-selling and up-selling proposals.
Advocacy : The customer has now become a promoter and defender of the brand. In this final stage, you can offer benefits for recommending the brand to other people .
How to approach after-sales?
Many companies think that after-sales service is limited to SAC, which is a big mistake, as the business ends up being just reactive, waiting for consumer complaints.

After-sales service needs to be active, so that customers feel remembered and valued. See below 10 tips on how to approach after-sales service efficiently:

Follow up, monitor the customer and ask about their level of satisfaction with your product/service;
Provide direct, clear and objective information when in contact with the customer;
Conduct satisfaction surveys;
A problem has arisen? Be quick to resolve it, especially when it is more serious and has a greater impact;
Offer compensation and bonuses;
Get in touch on special dates, such as birthdays;
Provide multiple channels for contacting customers. Online chat, WhatsApp, email, call center, VoIP and CRM – customers need easy access to reach you;
Send relevant content;
Conduct satisfaction surveys and use them for launches and news;
Have efficient support that is able to solve problems that may arise and answer customer questions.
Depending on the size of the company, after-sales service can be carried out by the sales team that closed the deal, or by a team specialized in customer success .

Regardless of who will handle after-sales, ensure that all sectors are integrated and have the necessary information to make the correct approach.

Using a CRM tool that centralizes all customer information is essential to ensure that everyone in the company has real-time data. This provides teams with the tools to solve potential problems and even take proactive action, i.e., before any problem arises.

>> Read also: Customer success, much more than after-sales

Get Bitrix24 CRM and control your after-sales service more easily!
With the right tool, such as Bitrix24 CRM , you can integrate post-sales actions, but not only that: you can track the entire customer journey, from marketing to after-sales, which is one of the great advantages of Bitrix24 compared to its competitors.

When working with a complete CRM like Bitrix24 , you can gather all customer information, their purchase history, transaction data and other important information, which allows you to personalize your service.

In addition, you can control the entire management of your company, since the platform is not just a sales CRM, but a complete software, designed to monitor all the processes of your business and your customer's journey with your company.

>> Find out which Bitrix24 plan is best for your company

Is it possible to track my after-sales support process in Bitrix24?
Yes, it is possible to track the after-sales service process in Bitrix24!

As we have seen, each company needs to have its own process and it varies according to the product/service sold, the customer and the needs that need to be met.

And the same goes for Bitrix24! Because it is fully customizable, it adapts to the reality of the business and allows you to build different types of funnels , including those that meet the post-sales stages.

This way, the entire team, from marketing, pre-sales, sales to the customer success team, can use the same platform for different objectives in an integrated way.