A growing number of firms now have a marketing department separate from their sales department. Smaller firms, or those trying to keep personnel costs down, may place the responsibility for both in the hands of one person or team. In either scenario, there’s inevitable friction between what the company expects from marketing and what it expects from sales.
This inter-functional friction isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When the economy and the company are growing, the competition for resources can be ignored to some degree. But when the economy is not so hot, or when the company is struggling, management often has to choose between the two. Something may have to be sacrificed.
This can be a tough choice. Marketing is the strategic key to long-term survival and growth. But sales is now…revenue right at this moment, when it’s needed. What we feel we need two or three years down the road may not seem as important as getting the bills paid today. But if we ignore marketing, we could be resigning ourselves to “just getting by” until some future point. But by the time we reach that point we might also be ready to close our doors. This scenario is too often the result when the business is dealing from “half a deck” of cards.
So is there no alternative but to drop, or to emphasize, one function over the other in the short-term? Can your company retain both marketing and sales and do so more efficiently through a closer integration between those departments?
The two functions will never truly be “one” as what they have to accomplish will never be exactly the same. But they can both be brought together to address reaching shared goals. Some companies have come close to such concepts through the use of “product teams” or other organizational devices where people from different departments come together for specific purposes.
Let’s look at those areas where goals might be shared between marketing and sales. The most common would be marketplace communications, customer acquisition, customer service, and customer retention.
Marketplace communications, such as public relations and advertising, are normally handled by specialists in marketing. Today many of those specialists are starting to work with salespeople to discover which of their communications are actually effective and which should simply be dropped. Often the sales force won’t use some of the brochures and other tools supplied by the marketing department. Both sides should work together to streamline communications efforts and make them more effective.
Many communications tools and techniques are dependent on the work of the sales force to maximize their effectiveness. Working together to develop such communications and to make sure they are actually being used is to both team’s benefit.
The acquisition of customers is a goal both teams should share and cooperate together to bring about. How do your salespeople work the marketplace; are they “scavengers” who go out and steal unhappy customers from the competition or “hunters” who dig customers out of their holes? Do they operate “farms” where they build relationships and referrals over time?
Do the materials designed by the marketing department compliment these styles? Are the products you sell more appropriate for one sales style versus the other? If both groups actually understand why different approaches should, or shouldn’t, be used they can coordinate their work to make the approaches more effective.
Customer service is often the responsibility of marketing. But in many firms salespeople hate the customer service department. They blame them for lack of follow-up to questions or failure to schedule warranty or service work. They’re demoralized every time a customer that should be an easy second or third sale won’t speak to them because of a bad experience with customer service.
When your salespeople tell a customer to call them direct and promises to take personal care of them, you should be aware you might have a problem. When a salesperson is buy doing customer service they’re not out making sales. But it may well be the inevitable result when they don’t trust that department to take care of their hard-gained customers.
And that leads to the all-important goal of customer retention. Marketing departments are normally well aware of the importance of retaining customers and reaping long-term benefits from relationships. Marketing departments are long-term oriented so this is understandable.
But does the sales department feel the same way? Are they really concerned with how customer service is handling their customers and therefore helping retention? Or is their incentive simply to bring in new customers regularly?
Even if you are selling large, single ticket items the sales force should find value in retaining customer satisfaction and loyalty. Do salespeople receive an incentive when their customers buy after-sale service? Do they benefit when the customer refers another customer to the company?
If the products you sell need to be repurchased on a regular basis, does the salesperson receive an incentive on those future sales, even if they are on to new and different customers? Is your sales team in a constant state of turnover where new people are expected to service someone else’s old customers without compensation?
The way in which the sales force is compensated and the expectations they are held to can have a very dramatic effect on customer retention. The same is true for the customer service department. Are customer service people under an incentive program that rewards them for holding onto customers and building relationships into future sales? Some companies are doing just that and are getting very positive results.
The actual process of “getting the sale” would probably remain in the realm of sales just as “new product development” would likely stay with marketing. Not everything should be shared, but where integration would be a benefit how would we go about doing so?
It wouldn’t necessarily mean redesigning the company’s organizational chart. To start off it could be something as simple as creating “goal teams” consisting of people from both departments. They would be assigned specific goals and objectives and given the task of finding ways to coordinate their departments in order to get results. There could be a “new customer acquisition” team and a “customer retention” team. Another team could be assigned the task of increasing the reach and effectiveness of communications while reducing the costs.
However you do it, integrating the efforts of people with shared goals should create some positive ideas. And together, they can be held responsible and rewarded for the positive results that go along with them. You can create a whole that is greater than the two halves…and that’s a lot better than playing the game of business with half a deck.
