Marketing has stepped up to take a greater role in leading CX initiatives across the enterprise, according to recent research from Salesforce. Though CX encompasses much more than marketing, marketers have a unique perspective of customer needs, behaviours, and challenges. Hopefully, greater alignment between all enterprise departments will erode the silos that are minimising the benefits of CX initiatives.
Almost half (45%) of all marketing leaders say their department is leading CX initiatives across the enterprise. This is up 24% from 2017. This has encouraged, according to Salesforce research, marketing to fundamentally revaluate its traditional role within the organisation. It involves encouraging collaboration between disparate departments and developing integrated objectives and workflows that go beyond organisational silos.
Initially, this has meant close alignment with sales and customer service. But it has also led to greater collaboration with other departments such as operations, HR, product development, IT and so on. Customers only see one organisation and brand not separate departments. Matt Preschern, CMO for HCL Technologies, recently wrote, “The 21st-century CMO must vigilantly interpret buyers’ needs and transform them into a cohesive experience across all brand touchpoints and enterprise departments”.
Silos are still limiting CX
Despite this greater collaboration and alignment between different teams and departments, organisational silos are still limiting the potential of many CX initiatives. A recent report from Forrester suggest that siloed departments are to blame for the CX Gap. It states, “Different silos — disconnected teams that manage CX differently, with minimal coordination or collaboration — lead to fragmented, unsatisfactory, and broken experiences.”
The issue of silos has plagued organisations for decades. It can derail a CX / Digital transformation initiative quicker than anything else. There is no easy off-the-shelf solution to the problem, but it can be managed and alleviated over time through greater collaboration and alignment of goals between different teams and departments within an organisation. This, of course, needs to be driven by the senior leaders of the business.
