Email teams sensing a disconnect between marketing and the customer experience are correct: Only 29% of firms say their marketing, sales and customer success units are fully aligned, according to
The RevOps Difference, a study from Pedowitz Group, conducted by Ascend2.
Of course, 69% are trying to align them, including 77% of marketers, but they have a way to
go.
The problem is that firms tend to focus on marketing-sales alignment, and not as much on customer success, the study says.
The outlook varies by
department: Only 21% of customer success respondents feel there is full alignment, versus 32% in sales, and 36% in marketing.
The failure to align may explain why only 18% rate their
customer experience as excellent, or best in class. Still, 54% say their experience is above average.
Full alignment provides many benefits, including:
- Improving customer experience — 58%
- Improving conversion/access rate — 41%
- Improving the use of data —
34%
- Improving employee experience — 34%
- Establishing a unified view of customer — 23%
- Enabling scalability — 21%
- Improving credibility of KPIs — 20%
- Enable adaptability —
18%
- Minimizing workplace politics — 12%
Moreover, 86% strongly agree that providing an exceptional customer experience
significantly improves revenue growth.
On the downside, misalignment can result in these consequences:
- Missed opportunities for revenue —
62%
- Poor customer experience — 59%
- Wasted time — 50%
- Poor employee experience
— 38%
- Wasted budget — 37%
And it’s not easy to provide an exceptional customer experience. The mail obstacles
are:
- Lack of communications — 46%
- Misaligned efforts and goals between teams — 42%
- Lack of unified
view of the customer — 33%
- Inability to acquire and retain talent — 32%
- Ineffective leadership —
29%
- Inadequate or inaccurate data — 28%
- Missing or inadequate technology — 25%
- Lack of communication between teams
— 46%
- Misaligned efforts and goals between teams — 42%
On another front, 33% expect to far exceed their revenue goals in the year ahead, while
50% believe they will be slightly ahead. Another 15% say they have met their goals and few foresee a decline.
In contrast, 16% said their revenue came in far above their goals last year,
while 46% said it came in slightly ahead. Another 26% basically met their goals, and 12% failed to meet them.
Marketers are the most optimistic, with 73% expecting to beat their
goals.
The top means of improving revenue growth in the year ahead are:
- Improving the customer experience —
56%
- Improving alignment of teams — 35%
- Improving data quality — 34%
- Improving employee acquisition and retention
— 33%
- Optimizing technology stacks — 20%
- Increasing data quality — 19%
- Unifying data —
18%
- Evaluating organizational structure — 18%
The greatest challenges to providing an exceptional customer experience are:
- Lack of communication between teams — 46%
- Misaligned efforts and goals between teams — 42%
- Lack of unified
view of the customer — 33%
- Inability to acquire and retain talent — 32%
- Ineffective leadership —
29%
- Inadequate or inaccurate data — 28%
- Missing or inadequate technology —
25%
- Lack of communication between teams — 46%
- Misaligned efforts and goals between teams —
42%
Marketers are more likely to complain about inaccurate data (36%), while customer success people gripe about ineffective leadership
(34%).
Ascend2 surveyed 507 professionals.