With the rapid acceleration of digital channel adoption during the life cycle of the customer journey, brands have been quick to adopt channels and adapt processes to meet their customers’ demands. But, many haven’t made the changes to their org structure to keep up with the pace.
Gartner recently highlighted this fact, stating by 2023, 25% of organizations will amalgamate marketing, sales, and CX into a single function. Seventy-seven percent of marketing leaders report they struggled to keep up with changes in customer needs, and 87% believe shifts in customer needs will become even more common over the next few years. This has forced many organizations to seek long-term collaborative solutions.
As a result, the area of overlap between customer experience (CX), sales, and marketing functions is rapidly increasing. CX has always focused on building a clear understanding of who the customer is and how interactions with the brand add to or detract value across their lifetime. So too are sales and marketing now focused on this objective. Organizations will formally combine sales and marketing and CX under a single leader who has clear and unambiguous accountability to maintain and grow customer lifetime value and profitability.
So, where do you start when you need to re-organize your teams by function instead of by channel? Here are four best practices we’re seeing from our customers and in the market.
Define your customer’s channels of choice
One of the most important things to keep in mind is that your customers want you to meet them in their preferred channels. Consider the purpose of different channels based on usage, volume, topics, and usage by your audiences. Competitive listening with intelligence is an excellent way to understand the types of conversations happening across social channels to align channel choices with business goals.
Map roles and responsibilities by function
Recognizing which departments engage with customers at different stages and outlining their current state can reduce overlap and offer departmental role facilitation.
Consider opening brainstorming sessions to department heads, collaborating on a new model (RACI, etc.) that clearly defines owners, collaborators, and processes for making changes to adapt. These sessions also can determine the effort needed by each role to meet business goals and objectives.
Have C-Suite buy-in to ensure needs are addressed and understood. Make sure you bring data to make the business case!
Determine internal operational changes
With your newly mapped structure, review SOPs, access, permissions, playbooks, guides, etc., to ensure these new roles are documented. New documentation provides an excellent time to host trainer sessions with department leads to ensure understanding, and flag changes are needed back to leadership. Having cross-department “drills” and run-throughs to practice new operational strategies and tactics can also prove beneficial.
Adapt (or adopt) software that meets your new structure
With clearly defined roles and new operational workflows, ensure your current tech stack meets your needs to track success, adoption, and business outcomes. Before adding new tech, confirm your current collection of technology works together. Consider going back to your partners to ask for support reflecting changes - make sure your partners know what you need for success.
Finding gaps? Talk to your account team about the full suite of Khoros products and services to help meet your needs and accelerate success!
