Optimizing Cross-Functional Customer Interaction Models

Mastering Customer Communications: Why Cross-Functional Governance is Key to Driving Change Every company wants to keep customers informed—but without the right governance, communications become disjointed, overwhelming, and ineffective. Too many emails. Too many teams sending messages. Too little coordination. Customers don’t care if an email comes from Marketing, CS, or Product. They just want clear, valuable info at the right time that's relevant to them. Affectionately, at Freshworks we call it 'air traffic control' because it requires herding cats to solve for a bigger cross-functional problem. Most companies lack a unified strategy for customer communications. Instead, different teams send messages based on their own priorities: ❌ Marketing wants to drive engagement → Sends webinar invites and thought leadership. ❌ CS wants to drive adoption → Sends onboarding guides and feature tips. ❌ Product wants to drive usage → Sends release notes and announcements. ❌ Sales wants to drive expansion → Sends upsell and cross-sell messages. The result? Customers get bombarded with messages that feel disconnected. How to Build a Strong Governance Model for Customer Communications ✅ Centralize Oversight with a Cross-Functional Team 🔹 Form a Customer Comms Council with teams from Marketing, CS, Product, Sales, RevOps, etc. to prioritize the most meaningful comms at any given moment. 🔹 Set up the basics like a shared calendar to track all customer-facing messages and prevent overload. ✅ Define Communication Tiers & Priorities 🔹 Not every update needs an email. Map messages to the best channels (email, in-product, community, knowledgebase, blog, etc.). 🔹 Set rules for who owns which type of communication (e.g., CS leads onboarding emails, Marketing owns advocacy outreach). 🔹 Set rules for the types of comms for each system from Marketo (promotional), Gainsight (operational), Medallia / Qualtrics (feedback), etc. ✅ Move from Ad-Hoc to Intentional Messaging 🔹 Align customer messages with major milestones in the customer journey. 🔹 Ensure every communication drives action—whether it's a webinar signup, feature adoption, or a renewal decision. ✅ Measure & Optimize 🔹 Track open rates, engagement, and retention impact. 🔹 Identify overlaps & gaps—are customers getting redundant messages? Are critical updates being missed? Governance Enables a State Change in Customer Communications. It shouldn’t be a free-for-all. Governance brings clarity, coordination, and impact. When cross-functional teams work together, customers receive the right messages, at the right time, from the right source. 💡 How does your team align on customer communications today? What’s working (or not)? #CustomerCommunications #CustomerEngagement #RetentionMarketing #B2BMarketing #CustomerSuccess #CustomerMarketing #Governance

The most powerful growth engine I've ever seen wasn't a brilliant marketing campaign, revolutionary sales approach, or customer success initiative. It was getting all three functions to actually talk to each other. I've watched companies invest millions in sophisticated tech stacks and expert teams, yet still struggle with the basics. Marketing creates leads that sales doesn't want. Sales makes promises customer success can't deliver. And customer success discovers insights that never make it back to marketing. These departmental silos are growth killers. Breaking down these walls doesn't require a complex restructure or expensive technology. It starts with something far more fundamental. Creating shared goals and genuine human connections. Through years of working across different organizations, I've found several approaches that have consistently helped bridge these divides. They're not universal solutions, but they've made a meaningful difference: 1. Unified Metrics That Matter When each department has different success measures, conflict is inevitable. Marketing celebrates lead volume, while sales focuses on deal size, while customer success prioritizes retention. Instead, align around shared metrics like customer lifetime value or revenue from existing customers. 2. Regular Cross-Pollination Nothing builds understanding like walking in someone else's shoes. Create regular opportunities for team members to experience life in other departments: - Have marketers join sales calls - Bring salespeople into customer success reviews - Include customer success in marketing planning sessions 3. The Customer Journey Council Establish a cross-functional team with representatives from each department that meets regularly to discuss specific customer experiences. Review actual customer journeys, identify gaps, and collectively solve problems. 4. Shared Celebration Rituals Create traditions that celebrate cross-functional wins, not just departmental victories. When a customer renews and expands their contract, that's a win for the entire revenue team. 5. Language Matters Pay attention to how people talk about other departments. Replace "they don't understand what we need" with "we haven't effectively communicated our needs." This subtle shift transforms blame into responsibility. Breaking down silos creates a fundamentally better customer experience. When all revenue functions work as one team, customers feel understood, supported, and valued throughout their entire journey. What's one step you've taken to improve cross-functional collaboration in your organization? --- This cross-functional approach guides my work as an on-demand CMO. I help growth-focused leaders build marketing strategies that align seamlessly with sales and customer success goals. If you're looking to transform siloed departments into a unified revenue engine, let's connect.

🚨 CS Leaders: Are We Ready to Be the Next Salesforce? 🚨 Marc Benioff just made headlines, as Salesforce is laying off 4,000 customer support roles, nearly half its support staff, citing AI’s ability to handle routine tasks and clean up a massive backlog. That’s not just a headline. It’s a wake-up call. If Salesforce, practically the birthplace of Customer Success,can overhaul its support model, what does that say about the rest of us? The real debate shaking up Customer Success today: 1️⃣ AI is ripping up the rulebook. Expectations for leveraging AI-driven automation, predictive insights, and personalization are no longer optional; they’re critical. But we must integrate AI in ways that keep the human connection alive. This isn’t about replacing humans, it’s about empowering them. 2️⃣ Cross-functional teaming must win over silos. Customers don’t care how we’re structured internally. They want simplicity and consistent outcomes. That means Sales, CS, Product, Marketing, Support, and Implementation must show up as one seamless team — not a collection of disconnected priorities. 3️⃣ Identity crisis is real. Is CS just post-sales support? Or is it a revenue engine, a strategic function, a guardian of customer value? Few roles are as misunderstood across executive suites — and that lack of definition is holding us back. 💡 CS Leaders: It’s time to act. 🤖 Embrace AI, but don’t let it become an excuse for a weak strategy. Use tech to unlock a smarter human connection. 🌍 Build for cross-functional simplicity. Customers should experience one team, one voice, one outcome, no matter how complex we are behind the scenes. 👓 Clarify your purpose. Decide: Are you a support lane or a growth engine? Because if you don’t define it, someone else will. 🔥 Fuel for debate: Are support roles truly becoming obsolete? Or are we missing the greater opportunity to finally deliver on what customers have always wanted: clarity, simplicity, and outcomes that matter? 👀 How are you building cross-functional alignment to ensure your customers experience “one company” instead of internal silos? #CustomerSuccess #Leadership #AI #PostSales #Collaboration #CreateTheFuture

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!

How I Manage Cross-Functional Stakeholders (as a Business Analyst) As Business Analysts, we need to bring cross-functional stakeholders together to solve problems, align on goals, and move projects forward. Early in my career, I didn’t know how to handle that. →Different goals. →Competing perspectives. →A lot of strong opinions. What I’ve learned since is that the key to de-escalating tension is not about addressing the conflict directly it’s about shifting the focus to something everyone can rally behind... 👉 The Customer 👈 Here’s how I do it: 1️⃣ We Define the Customer Together → I get everyone involved early - we call out who the Customer actually is. → We whiteboard it or use post-it notes to make it visible. → We get agreement across the teams. (This part always surfaces interesting differences at first!) 2️⃣ We Define What the Customer Values → We brainstorm: What does the Customer care about? → What outcome are they expecting from us? → What would “success” look like for them - not just for us internally? (These become our shared goals - not team goals, Customer goals.) 3️⃣ We Use the Customer as Our North Star Throughout the workshop, whenever we hit a decision point, I bring it back to: 🔎 “Would the Customer value this?” 🔎 “Does this align with what matters most to them?” 🔎 “Are we designing for them - or just for us?” This simple shift in focus de-escalates tension immediately. It stops it from being Team A vs Team B - and instead, it becomes all of us working for the Customer. Defining the Customer early on changes the entire conversation. It sets the tone for collaboration, problem-solving, and better outcomes - every time. So my call to action? → give this a try in your next workshop. Spend 5 minutes at the beginning defining the customer and what they value... → send me a message with the results, would love to hear how it goes! Is there anything else that you do to help reduce the tension? Found this interesting? Repost to your network, and follow me → Matthew Thomas Holliday #businessanalysis #stakeholdermanagement #businessanalyst #workshops

"Don't bring me a problem, bring me a solution." We've all heard it. But let's change the game: "Bring me a POV." A Point of View (POV) isn't just a report or a list of problems; it's the narrative that turns insights into impact. For CX pros, this is how you cut through the noise, align cross-functional teams, and drive real business outcomes. Why a POV Matters in CX So many CX pros miss the opportunity to lead here. Why? Because they stop at reporting the problem instead of shaping the solution. Case in point: Text analytics trends over the past 6 months. ❌ Trending Negative Topics: - Delivery Delays: Customers frustrated by late shipments or lack of updates. - WISMO ("Where is My Order?") Calls: High volumes driven by unclear timelines. - Returns Confusion: A messy, opaque process that leaves customers disillusioned. The insights are there, but what are you doing with them? This is where the POV Framework comes in. The Post-Purchase CX POV Framework 1. Problem (Framing the Gap): Identify the specific post-purchase pain point and who it’s impacting. 📍 Example: “30% of our contact center calls are WISMO-related because customers aren’t receiving proactive delivery updates. This causes frustration and drives higher operational costs.” 👉 Practical Tip: Use text analytics to identify recurring themes (e.g., "late deliveries" or "missing tracking info") and quantify the frequency and impact. 2. Impact (Quantifying the Stakes): Outline the ripple effect of the problem on both the customer and the business. 📍 Example: “This gap leads to increased customer frustration, driving a 15% churn rate. On the business side, WISMO calls cost $200K annually in labor and reduce support team efficiency.” 👉 Practical Tip: Use metrics like churn, operational costs, and negative reviews to paint a vivid picture of why the problem matters. 3. Vision (Creating the Desired Future State): Show what’s possible if the problem is solved. 📍 Example: “What if we implemented proactive, branded delivery updates that reduce WISMO calls by 40% and improve customer retention by 10%?” 👉 Practical Tip: Tie the vision to broader business goals (e.g., customer retention, cost efficiency). Use storytelling to help your audience visualize success. 4. Solution (Experience Design/Proposed Fix): Present your actionable plan, aligned to the business’s priorities. 📍 Example: “By integrating dynamic delivery updates with real-time tracking, we can reduce WISMO calls, increase customer satisfaction, and reclaim $200K in operational costs annually.” 👉 Practical Tip: Keep the solution specific, actionable, and measurable. Collaborate with operations, IT, and marketing to align on execution. 💡 Your Turn: What’s your biggest post-purchase pain point? Drop it in the comments, and let’s workshop a POV together.

My biggest priority at Junction is improving renewal conversations. Not by adding more touchpoints. By making every interaction count. Here are three tactics that actually moved retention: Tactic One: Segment Your Book Most CSMs treat all customers the same. Same cadence. Same agenda. Same deck. That's the fastest way to become background noise. Instead, segment your book by outcome they're driving: → Revenue growth customers → Cost savings customers → Efficiency/workflow customers When you group similar outcomes, you stop context switching between completely different value stories. You get in flow with relevant case studies, metrics that matter, and strategic conversations they actually care about. Tactic Two: Mine for Intelligence Not every customer call needs to drive immediate action. Sometimes you're gathering intelligence for the renewal conversation 90 days out. When you hear "gold nuggets" like: → Upcoming board priorities → Budget reallocation plans → New executive KPIs → Competitive pressure points You capture them. Then you use those insights to frame your value story around what their CFO actually cares about. Tactic Three: Outcomes, Not Features Your customer messages used to sound like this: "Checking in on adoption metrics and wanted to schedule our quarterly review..." Now they sound like this: "I noticed your team is focused on reducing time-to-market by 30% this quarter. Most ops leaders we work with are facing the same tension: pressure to move faster while maintaining quality and compliance." What's more likely: Your customer is thinking about the business outcome you impact? Or your customer is thinking about your product features? Message accordingly, and engagement increases. --- The shift isn't more customer touches. It's more intelligent customer touches. Stop optimizing for activity volume. Start optimizing for strategic relevance. How are you teaching your CS team to segment, mine intelligence, and lead with outcomes?

🧑💻 🪴 Reinventing User Nurture & Engagement with AI: Personalized, Prescriptive, and Scalable So thrilled to share a successful AI experiment we ran at Infor (inspired by Ashvin Vaidyanathan’s team). While many “AI in CS” stories focus on sentiment analysis or churn prediction, we at Infor wanted to explore how AI could move beyond insights and actually drive meaningful action. To drive adoption, our CS team used to spend hours analyzing usage data and entitlements to manually identify which ERP features would have the most impact for each customer. So, when leadership asked me to build a scaled CS motion from scratch, I wanted to go beyond fragmented, manual processes - and make it intelligent, not just automated. 🧠 We built a User-Nurture AI Agent that analyzes product usage against entitlements, benchmarks customers against industry peers, and prescribes the next best actions (top three features) for each customer - automatically generating and sending personalized outreach. 🏗️ Architecture: Data Inputs → Processing & Recommendation Prioritization → Content Generation → HILT Review → Automated Send Results: 💬 Engagement: 50% open rate • >35% CTR • <2% unsubscribes 💻 Adoption of prescribed features: 14% exploration • >30% of customers engaged 🫶 What once took weeks now happens in hours - delivering 10× efficiency and 3× deeper personalization. Grateful to have partnered with our cross-functional Product and Engg champions, Andy Lapos and Balaji Siddamsetty, and exec leadership support from Mandy Majchrzak Mari Cross Raj S. Joshi in bringing this model to life. 🌟 As AI reshapes engagement, I believe the real edge will belong to teams that embed intelligence directly into execution loops - turning insight into action.  We’re now expanding this program to other products and use cases across Infor. If you’re experimenting in this space, I’d love to swap notes, always eager to learn from others driving AI pilots in CS. #scalecustomersuccess #customerexperience #AI #adoption

𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬. You have one Revenue Team. Three specialized roles: 🎯 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 (𝐃𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧)  Find and educate prospects on value 🎯 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 (𝐀𝐜𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬)  Convert prospects and establish initial value 🎯 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 (𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬)  Optimize existing customers and drive expansion revenue 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠: All three roles do revenue generation—just at different stages of the customer journey. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞: 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞: ‣ Business discovery and needs analysis ‣ Value articulation with ROI using unified outcomes library ‣ Objection handling and negotiation ‣ Systematic closing processes ‣ Performance measurement against revenue outcomes 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 (𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥):  ‣ Shared library of outcomes and value propositions that Marketing positions, Sales sells, and CS delivers ‣ Common language for describing customer success and business impact ‣ Consistent value metrics that CS can actually deliver and measure  ‣ Same expansion value stories that align with initial acquisition promises 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐞-𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: ‣ Marketing: Applied to market segments and demand creation ‣ Sales: Applied to prospects and initial deals ‣ Customer Success: Applied to existing customers and growth opportunities 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭: Instead of Marketing → Sales → CS handoffs, you get seamless Revenue Team collaboration optimizing the entire customer lifecycle. 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬: ‣ CS gets systematic revenue training (partnering with Sales Enablement) ‣ CS carries expansion quotas (coordinating with Sales Ops) ‣ Performance management based on revenue outcomes ‣ Joint methodology development ‣ Cross-functional account planning  ‣ Unified value and outcomes library ensuring Marketing, Sales, and CS use same language and promises 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐄𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: • Joint methodology development with Sales leadership • Unified discovery, demo, and closing frameworks • Shared objection handling protocols • Common value and outcomes library development  • Revenue Operations coordination for forecasting The companies doing this are seeing 5-10 point NRR improvements within quarters, not years. Tuesday, I'll share the 90-day roadmap companies use to make this transformation. 𝑨𝒓𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒓𝒖𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒆𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔 𝒐𝒓 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒇𝒊𝒆𝒅 𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒖𝒆 𝑻𝒆𝒂𝒎? Tag your Sales leader—do they see this opportunity? #RevenueTeam #SalesAlignment #CSTransformation

Most CSMs are on two opposite ends of CS. Some are all about firefighting and reactive support. Others are always trying to focus on NRR & GRR. WRONG. After years of working with high value, enterprise clients, I've realized that CS is about about solving for outcomes of the customer. And the discovery phase isn't just important—it's everything. But here's the thing: most teams rush through it. Discovery isn't just a kickoff call or an onboarding checklist. It's the cornerstone that determines whether your customer relationship thrives or dies. When done right, discovery transforms transactional relationships into strategic partnerships. What makes discovery so critical? It's where you uncover what success actually means to your customer—not what you think it means. It's where you identify the unspoken needs that your customer might not even realize they have. It's where you build the trust that will carry you through inevitable challenges. Here's a framework for discovery excellence: 1 - Strategic inquiry - Ask open-ended questions that reveal true objectives: - What would success look like 6 months from now? - Why is that goal important now? 2 - Active listening - Listen for what isn't being said. The gold is often in the hesitations and the qualifiers. 3 - Framework-driven exploration - Use JTBD, Value Selling, or Customer Development models to structure your understanding. 4 - Cross-functional alignment - Share insights across Sales, Product, Marketing, and Support to create one unified customer view. The discovery phase isn't a one-time event. The best CSMs treat it as an ongoing practice that evolves with the customer's needs. I've seen firsthand how mastering discovery leads to: - Tailored success plans that actually deliver value - Early problem detection before escalations - Higher adoption rates and expanded usage - Renewals that feel inevitable, not forced Whatever it takes, don't shortchange this phase. Your retention metrics, NPS scores, and expansion revenue all trace back to how well you understand what your customer is truly "hiring" your product to do. What's your most effective discovery technique? Share below—I'm always looking to improve my playbook. __ ♻️ Reshare this post if it can help others! __ ▶️ Want to see more content like this? You should join 2297+ members in the Tidbits WhatsApp Community! 💥 [link in the comments section]