Aligning Team Goals With Customer Experience Expectations

The Problem: No Shared Definition of Customer “Need” Most organizations assume they are customer-centric, but in practice, sales, marketing, and development teams all define customer “needs” differently: • Sales teams see needs as features, benefits, or exciters that help close deals. • Marketing teams describe needs as value drivers, use cases, or personas that segment the market. • Development teams think about needs as requirements, specs, or technical solutions that guide design. Each discipline is correct in its own context, but because their definitions differ, the organization ends up misaligned on what customers truly want. This lack of agreement leads to: • Wasted investment: teams build features or campaigns customers don’t care about. • Misaligned priorities: marketing highlights one “need,” while development is solving for another. • Unreliable growth: innovation success rates remain low because there’s no common, customer-driven truth guiding decisions. The Outcome-Driven Innovation process is the solution. ODI resolves this by defining needs as customer outcomes—the metrics customers use to measure success when getting a job done. • Outcomes are solution-independent: not features or benefits, but timeless measures of what getting the job done “better” means. • Outcomes are precise and measurable: e.g., “Minimize the time it takes to gain visual access to the target structure” rather than “faster setup.” • Outcomes create a common language: aligning sales, marketing, and development around the same customer truth. With ODI, everyone agrees on what a “need” is, because it’s framed as a customer-defined metric of success — not each team member’s conflicting interpretation. Outcome statements are unambiguous, precise, knowable and discoverable, stable over time (as is the job-to-be-done), measurable and controllable, and they follow a set of time-tested rules. Companies like Bosch, Cox Automotive, and The Medicines Company aligned their teams around customer outcomes before development began, resulting in products that were not only successful, but sustained market leadership.

One of the biggest challenges in customer experience (CX) initiatives isn't just getting buy-in—it's making sure communication flows seamlessly across different teams to drive meaningful progress. It's not enough to have passionate people involved; it's about aligning everyone around a shared purpose and ensuring that action follows. I see it all the time—CX councils or teams that meet to discuss customer feedback, but the conversation doesn't always translate into real change. It's critical to go beyond just reviewing the numbers. We need to collaborate, co-create, and drive real impact for our customers. So how do we ensure communication within cross-functional teams leads to action? ▶️Structure your meetings to drive progress. If you have cross-functional buy-in, it's essential to manage those meetings effectively. Make sure that everyone understands their role, the goals, and what success looks like. It's not enough to simply review metrics—what are the actions you'll take based on those insights? ▶️Unify efforts across the organization. In many organizations, different teams—like those working on journey mapping and those focused on customer insights—work in silos. We need to bring those efforts together around your customer experience mission, ensuring that all teams are aligned with a shared definition of success. ▶️Be proactive and resourceful. Don't wait for things to fall through the cracks. Be a resource to your team members, follow up, and offer support where needed. This could mean helping a colleague facilitate a journey mapping session or providing customer feedback to help illustrate a challenge. Communication is key, but proactive support is what drives progress forward. When working cross-functionally, the responsibility doesn't end with the meeting. We need to be deliberate about setting expectations, following up on actions, and ensuring everyone understands how their efforts contribute to the larger customer experience mission. Great communication can turn fragmented efforts into unified progress. Let's make sure we're not just talking about customer experience, but working together to make it happen. How do you ensure effective communication across teams in your organization? Drop your process below! #CustomerExperience #CX #CrossFunctionalTeams #Collaboration #Leadership #Communication #CXStrategy #CustomerJourney

Over the years, I've discovered the truth: Game-changing products won't succeed unless they have a unified vision across sales, marketing, and product teams. When these key functions pull in different directions, it's a death knell for go-to-market execution. Without alignment on positioning and buyer messaging, we fail to communicate value and create disjointed experiences. So, how do I foster collaboration across these functions? 1) Set shared goals and incentivize unity towards that North Star metric, be it revenue, activations, or retention. 2) Encourage team members to work closely together, building empathy rather than skepticism of other groups' intentions and contributions. 3) Regularly conduct cross-functional roadmapping sessions to cascade priorities across departments and highlight dependencies. 4) Create an environment where teams can constructively debate assumptions and strategies without politics or blame. 5) Provide clarity for sales on target personas and value propositions to equip them for deal conversations. 6) Involve all functions early in establishing positioning and messaging frameworks. Co-create when possible. By rallying together around customers’ needs, we block and tackle as one team towards product-market fit. The magic truly happens when teams unite towards a shared mission to delight users!

Almost 10 years ago, I stepped away from my Head of Marketing role. Not because I didn’t love marketing, I did. A lot in fact. But because I wanted to solve the problem that I, and lots of my marketing peers were being tripped up by ↓ The disconnect between campaign and core. Companies often prioritise the performance customers see, but overlook the experience they feel. Brands craft powerful marketing messages promising simplicity, customer-centricity, or innovation, only for customers to experience the exact opposite once they interact with the business. 👎 A “customer-first” company with an impossible-to-reach support team. 👎 A “seamless” experience riddled with friction. 👎 A personalised campaign that leads to a generic, frustrating journey. And it's why I became a service designer; to bridge the gap between the customer experience and how teams show up, interact and deliver it every day. It’s not enough to talk about customer-centricity, because your customers are gonna see right through that. It has to be seen, actioned and felt in how teams work, make decisions, and design experiences - with your customers need at the core. Because this is the production behind your performance. At The Marketing Meetup last night, I shared my journey of building customer-centric cultures, and the three key steps that make it happen (OK, caveat here, this is a massively over-simplified version): ✅ Understand Customer insight isn’t just a marketing function. Every team should be plugged into real customer conversations. Dive into the data then push it further; spend time in their shoes, immerse yourselves in their worlds and bring those experiences into your daily team interactions. ✅ Embed Align your values and ways of working with your brand promises; map the experience gap by comparing brand messaging with real customer experiences. Train teams to think customer-first, ensuring CX is part of daily decision-making, and recognise and reward employees who bridge the gap, turning customer-centricity into action. ✅ Operate Customer-centricity must be a business-wide way of working, we're talking about moving from slogans to systems; Design cross-functional engagement strategies that span the 5Es: entice, enter, engage, exit and extend and develop customer journey ownership models - set up squads that are clear on who is responsible for each stage, and how teams work together to improve the end-to-end experience. Great brands don’t just tell great stories. They live them, from campaign to core. What companies do you think are doing this well? I would love to crowd-source a list of these examples, let me know in the comments below 👇 #CustomerCentricity #BrandExperience #ServiceDesign 

Strategy isn’t a slide. It’s a fight worth having. I’ve been quiet here for a day because I just came out of two intense, energizing sessions with our extended strategy team. And I’m still fired up. 💥 We pushed each other hard. We challenged assumptions. We laughed a lot. And we left with crystal-clear alignment and a shared determination to think bigger, move faster, and win as one team. Our focus: ✅ Think Big, Go Fast Not in months and quarters. In days and weeks. ✅ Win Every Key Moment in the Customer Journey Especially the ones that define value and long-term loyalty. ✅ Win as One Team Not your team, not my team. Our team. Rooted in shared goals, not personal preferences. For some reason, I usually get to help moderate these sessions. That’s no small task with 25 to 30 strong leaders in the room from every department. But it gives me a front-row seat into how we build alignment that lasts. Here’s what works for us and might work for you: 1️⃣ Be clear up front Why are we meeting? What are the most important objectives? And how exactly are we going to win together? Set the tone early. Remove ambiguity. Drive purpose. 2️⃣ Bring the voice of the customer into the room 🎤 The most substantial alignment starts with empathy and clarity around what matters most to our customers. When we anchor the conversation in value needed and delivered, priorities become clearer and conflict becomes productive. Customer insights create unity. 3️⃣ Make cross-functional ownership real 🤝 Everyone says “we’re one team.” But real alignment means we walk out with shared KPIs, not siloed tasks. Product, Sales, CS, Ops, we all succeed only when we move together. 💬 So here's my call to action for you today: If you’re leading in CS, CX, Product, or Revenue, and you’re halfway through Q3, ask yourself: Are you chasing alignment? Or are you building it through purpose, participation, and shared accountability? The next level doesn’t arrive by accident. We create it. Together. #CreateTheFuture #LeadershipInAction #CustomerSuccess #StrategyExecution #CrossFunctionalAlignment #OneTeamOneMission #Q3Momentum

Company: Why aren’t we seeing results from our customer-centric strategy? Me: Do you want the truth or the version that won’t sting? Company: The truth This came up in a recent masterclass and I gave it to them straight: You’re not aligning teams around a shared vision of serving customers. You’re letting each department chase its own goals. You’re not making decisions based on the customer. You’re prioritising the balance sheet You’re not adapting to customers feedback. You’re just collecting it and pretending that’s the same thing. You’re not designing around what customers need. You’re shipping features they never asked for. You’re not really solving customer problems. You’re chasing an NPS score to decorate a quarterly report. Customer-centricity doesn’t fail because it’s the wrong strategy. It fails because companies treat it like a slogan, not a mindset If you want it to work, you have to: ✓ Reward behaviours that improve customer outcomes ✓ Design processes around what customers need ✓ Bring customer insights into every decision ✓ Align every team around the customer ✓ Measure what matters to customers ✓ Act fast when something’s broken ✓ Treat customer trust as an asset This isn’t a campaign. It’s a commitment. To change. To listen. To act. But every day. By every team. What else would you add? #cx #customerexperience #customerrelations

Your marketing team is guessing what your sales team already knows. I see it every single week: Marketing creates campaigns. Sales talks to customers. Zero collaboration. Wasted opportunity. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺: - Marketing creates personas (guessing) - Sales hears actual pains (knowing) - Marketing writes messaging (guessing) - Sales handles objections (knowing) - No information sharing - No collaboration - No growth 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘀: Your marketing team creates content, campaigns, and messaging based on assumptions, marketing research, and industry reports. In contrast, your sales team has actual conversations every single day with prospects who share their real pains, objections, and buying criteria. Yet somehow, these valuable insights never make it back to influence marketing strategy. [𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨] One person creates the foundation and the other leverages it to reach new heights. Your sales and marketing teams need to function as a single unit. Sales should provide real-world insights and direct customer language, while marketing should amplify and scale these proven messages through channels that reach more people. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸: 1. 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 Not separate worlds: - Weekly sales-marketing sync - Marketing joins sales calls - Sales reviews all content - Customer language documented 2. 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐆𝐨𝐚𝐥𝐬 Unite the metrics: - Pipeline over MQLs - Revenue over activities - Quality over quantity - Customer success over volume 3. 𝐄𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐅𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 Loop Make it systematic: - Sales validates personas - Marketing tests messages - Results shared transparently - Continuous improvement 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻: 1. Schedule weekly sales-marketing sync 2. Create a shared customer language doc 3. Have marketing join sales calls 4. Build a unified dashboard Remember: Like those wall climbers, Neither one could make it alone. But together, they're unstoppable. ---- ❤️ 𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬. ♻️ 𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤. 🔔 Follow me for more helpful and entertaining videos to improve your go-to-market approach. 🤟

The gap between the job to be done and where expertise resides is shrinking. AI doesn't care about silos. Neither do customers. They care about outcomes. Companies are just beginning to build cross-functional workflows that align to customer outcomes rather than departmental goals. The enablement and governance to support this are emerging now. These early moves are showing new possibilities for how teams organize and how roles evolve. McKinsey found that workflow redesign has the biggest effect on bottom-line results from gen AI. Yet only 21% of organizations have fundamentally redesigned how work flows across teams. Based on what I'm seeing with GTM teams, four stages are emerging: Stage 1: Traditional Org + AI Tools → Stage 2: Traditional Org + AI Teammates → Stage 3: Connected Workflows → Stage 4: Work Chart Organization Most companies operate at Stage 1 or early Stage 2. A small number are building toward Stage 4, organizing around customer journeys instead of departments. Key insights: ➡︎ Journey Teams own complete customer outcomes (Net New Revenue + time-to-value, Net Retention Rate + customer satisfaction). Everyone shares the same metrics instead of optimizing for departmental goals. ➡︎ A Shared Expertise Pool provides unified data, AI systems, and brand narrative that both Journey Teams build from. No more handoffs between disconnected functions. ➡︎ You don't need to reorganize everything at once. Start by connecting one painful workflow across teams. Prove the model works. Build momentum. ➡︎ There are compelling results: 75% faster content creation, 98% lead qualification accuracy, 2-3X campaign engagement from teams building connected workflows. ➡︎ Roles are evolving. Marketing ops professionals are becoming infrastructure enablers. Integrated campaign managers are becoming GTM journey orchestrators. People are building capabilities that didn't exist before. Thank you to Heidi Melin (6X CMO, Senior Operating Advisor at Hellman & Friedman) and Sarah Gavin (Chief Communications Officer and Acting CMO at Zendesk) for sharing their insights on what this shift means for GTM leaders. See the full framework, real case studies with results, and a 5-step implementation guide in the newsletter below. I created 8-min AI video explainer and 12-min AI podcast versions (links in comments) of the newsletter using NotebookLM to cater to different learning styles. I reviewed these AI outputs personally for accuracy and to ensure responsible use. Check them out. This tech is advancing dramatically to help with learning. Would love to hear your thoughts. If you found this helpful, please subscribe and share.