The Hidden Cost Of Enterprise Silos

A New Role For Marketing?

How do you design and deliver exceptional customer experience in an organisation that still behaves in functional silos?

This question about organisation culture can present a dilemma for Marketing Specialists.

Do you cross your fingers and hope that the business culture will change, or do you step up and play a pivotal leadership role to actively shape the culture?

Play A Bigger Game

A recent blog post by software developer Adobe shows their view on staying connected to the customer ‘across the boundaries’:

‘The places for customers to interact with you seems to be changing daily, yet many clients still look at this data in a siloed manner. Customers expect ubiquity from brand experiences, so your organization should also start thinking in this way’

The imperative to act is obvious, particularly given the damage to customer experience from delays, inefficiencies and slow response.

Here are three powerful areas in which Marketing can shape the culture.

#1   Make Leadership Commitment To The Customer Tangible

Marketing needs to step in and influence how the strategy is communicated and linked to day-to-day behaviour. Former ME Bank CMO and now Chief Executive Officer at Humm Group, Rebecca James explains:

‘At ME this influence came in the creation of customer promises that the organisation strives to deliver each and every day. These promises were purposefully written from the customer’s point of view: Know ME, Know More than ME (when it comes to banking), Don’t Bullshit ME and Make ME Smile.’

#2   Measure And Reward The Customer Experience

We shouldn’t be too surprised that a ‘silo mentality’ still prevails because team leader’s goals, priorities and KPI’s are so often in conflict.

The Net Promoter Score offers a simple, powerful way to measure, publicise and reward performance linked to the customer (and to working as one team).

Companies such as Lego base bonuses for the whole workforce on NPS scores, and not surprisingly they reinforce the behaviours of teamwork and collaboration.

#3   Scale Teamwork

Everyone talks about scaling technology, but only the leading edge are actively scaling teamwork as a core capability.

Graham Winter, Executive Director at Think One Team reflected,

‘Our clients continue to move from subject-matter expert led departments to nimble customer-connected teams and shared ways of teaming and partnering.’

Play That Big Game

It’s not like Marketing doesn’t have plenty to do, however all that could fizzle without a culture of working together as one cohesive team.

Fortunately, Marketing knows a thing or two about people experience and how to shape behaviour – so it's time to apply it to the workplace culture!