Retaining existing customers is just as important as acquiring new ones. Sales and support can work together to acquire new customers.

However, with fresh challenges constantly arising in the marketplace infrastructure and requirements, simply “retaining” customers is not enough. Rather, businesses must seek to grow with existing clients. It has to enhance the value of these relationships over time.

You should note that existing clients spend almost 31% more than new customers. Similarly, current customers are 60-70% likely to buy from you again. It’s a big difference compared to the 5-20% purchase likelihood of new prospects.

While revenue-generating activities fall within the sales wheelhouse, support can play a vital role in driving upsells and add-ons. Here’s how these two departments can work together to foster customer growth.

Upsell when everyone is ready

Have you ever called to upsell a customer only to be greeted by an angry voice on the line? Maybe the customer has an open ticket with support and has been trying to get her issue resolved. And now you’re trying to upsell her. Nobody wins in that situation, least of all the customers.

These are the types of situations occurring when sales and support teams have limited visibility into each other’s conversations. It’s nearly impossible to provide great customer experiences. Putting your sales team in a position where it must constantly ping support for information zaps productivity for both teams.

Ensuring that key information like open and closed tickets is made visible to your reps in your sales platform enhances team agility. It helps reps enter conversations with greater context as well.

Spot an open ticket? Now probably isn’t the time for an upsell. Did an issue just get resolved in an efficient and timely manner? Grow your relationship and give the customer a quick call just to check-in. Smooth sailing? Time to pitch that new add-on.

This level of insight also sets the stage for upselling through groundswell. For example. If your company offers a self-serve model, two departments from a single organization may use the same product/service. However, sales may be in touch with only one of them.

Noting when one of these “self-servers” reaches out to support. It creates a perfect opportunity for sales to consolidate smaller, individual accounts into a larger corporate contract. Connecting these users under a single managed account gives sales a better understanding of the customer’s overall needs. It creates a better customer experience and increase the opportunity for long-term growth.