Studies show that the cost of acquiring a new customer can be up to 25 times higher than retaining an existing one in some industries. At the same time, customer expectations for after-sales service are rising. Faster responses, personalized contact – until now, improving quality required more and more representatives. Today, AI is changing the rules of scaling. This creates a challenging moment for those involved in Customer Success.
That's why HubSpot has reinvented its Service Hub, and it looks promising.
According to HubSpot research, over 96% of business managers want better collaboration between customer service, sales, and marketing. Traditionally, these were seen as separate units, but to achieve truly exemplary customer service, collaboration between them is necessary.
The Customer Success department focuses primarily on nurturing, which means maintaining high-quality service for existing customers rather than seeking new ones. Although these are separate fields with different goals, there are touchpoints between Customer Success, marketing, and sales – all are customer-oriented. As I mentioned in the Revenue Operations article, their common goal is to ensure customer satisfaction.
Customers don't want to be pestered by the CS team with too many calls or emails or be part of an upselling strategy. Modern customers see the company as a whole, not as separate departments. Therefore, it is important to understand how these three departments intersect during the Customer Journey – from the moment the customer is an anonymous visitor to becoming a paying customer. The new, refreshed Service Hub can support this journey, ensuring consistency and coordination of all departments' actions.
First and foremost, Service Hub is now equipped with a new workspace, the Helpdesk. The Helpdesk combines the inbox and ticketing functions in one place. This allows all employees to access one place where they can see all customer inquiries and their progress.
With this workspace, we can integrate inquiries sent through forms, emails, phones, and chats from social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, or Instagram. This allows the integration of all possible communication channels through which customer inquiries may come.
Tickets can be created not only manually but also automatically through appropriate workflows based on inquiries coming from any of these channels. Secondly, thanks to the Channel Switching feature, conversations with customers from all channels land in the same inbox. If customers need to leave their desks, they can switch from email to chat or phone call, all without leaving the shared inbox.
How does this affect collaboration between CX and sales?
Salespeople can stay up-to-date with tickets that customer service representatives are working on. This avoids sending special renewal offers at the wrong time or being caught off guard by a customer during a meeting who asks additional questions about technical issues being resolved.
Additionally, the Agent Presence feature ensures that customer service employees know if one of their colleagues is working on a given ticket, avoiding situations where two people handle the same issue.
Smooth teamwork is also ensured by new ticket assignment features, Capacity & Skills-Based Routing. This allows employees to be assigned skills based on which they are then assigned tickets requiring those competencies. This ensures that each ticket automatically goes to the right place.
Such integration ensures smooth communication and coordination between teams, resulting in a better customer experience and more efficient company operations.
Improving work organization and response times to inquiries is an effective way to improve customer satisfaction. The Service Hub offers a range of tools to help you maintain and monitor satisfaction levels.
The SLA feature in HubSpot Service Hub allows companies to set clear expectations for response and resolution times for customer inquiries. This helps support teams prioritize tickets and ensure that all are handled in a timely manner, improving customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
Customer "health" indicators allow continuous monitoring of their engagement and satisfaction. These indicators enable teams to quickly identify customers needing additional attention or intervention, maintaining high levels of satisfaction and loyalty.
Service Analytics offers tools for creating reports and analyzing data related to customer service. This feature enables teams to track key metrics such as average ticket closure time, Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), and chat wait times. This information helps improve service processes and overall customer experience.
Customer feedback surveys allow companies to gather direct feedback on service experiences. Collecting this feedback helps identify what works well and what needs improvement. Surveys can be customized (Custom Surveys) to meet specific needs, providing detailed insights into various aspects of customer service.