Breaking Down Silos: Why Accountability Across Sales, Marketing, and Customer Experience Is Your Key to Growth
Anthony Milia
Milia Marketing
Here’s a story we see too often: Marketing blames sales for not following up on leads. Sales blames marketing for poor lead quality. Meanwhile, customer experience teams feel caught in the middle, dealing with expectations set by both departments. Sound familiar?
The Cost of Misalignment
When departments point fingers instead of taking ownership, everybody loses. We’ve seen fabrication shops waste thousands on marketing campaigns that generate leads their sales team isn’t equipped to handle. We’ve watched sales teams struggle with messaging that doesn’t match what marketing promises. And we’ve witnessed customer service teams scrambling to deliver on commitments made without their input.
What Real Accountability Looks Like
True accountability isn’t about finding someone to blame—it’s about every department taking ownership of the entire customer journey. Here’s what that means in practice:
Marketing must track lead quality, not just lead quantity, understand the sales process before creating campaigns, measure success by actual sales rather than inquiries, maintain regular communication with sales about lead feedback, and create materials that help close deals, not just generate interest.
Sales teams need to provide detailed feedback on lead quality, follow up on leads within agreed time-frames, use provided marketing materials consistently, track and report on why deals are won or lost, and share customer feedback that can improve marketing efforts.
Customer experience teams should measure and report on the full customer journey, flag disconnects between promises and delivery, provide feedback on common customer concerns, track and share customer satisfaction metrics, and identify opportunities for process improvement.
Setting Clear Metrics That Matter
Each department needs specific, measurable goals that align with overall business objectives. Marketing should focus on cost per qualified lead, lead-to-sale conversion rate, revenue influenced by campaigns, customer acquisition cost, and return on marketing investment.
Sales should track lead response time, quote-to-close ratio, average project value, customer lifetime value, and reasons for winning or losing deals.
Customer experience should measure customer satisfaction scores, project completion timelines, referral rates, repeat business percentage, and issue resolution time.
Creating a Culture of Shared Success
The most successful fabrication shops we work with have created systems where departments meet regularly to review metrics together, wins are celebrated across teams, problems are solved collaboratively, everyone understands their impact on the customer journey, and success is measured by overall business growth.
Tools That Drive Accountability
To make this work, businesses need shared dashboards showing key metrics, clear processes for lead handling and feedback, regular cross-departmental meetings, documented responsibilities and expectations, and systems for tracking customer interactions.
The Role of Leadership
Leaders must set clear expectations for collaboration, provide tools and resources needed for success, remove barriers between departments, recognize and reward cross-functional wins, and model accountability in their own actions.
Real Results from Real Alignment
When departments work together and take ownership of results, we’ve seen marketing costs drop while results improve, sales cycles shorten, customer satisfaction scores rise, employee satisfaction increase, and revenue grow consistently.
Making It Work in Your Business
Start by mapping your entire customer journey, identifying handoff points between departments, setting clear metrics for each stage, creating feedback loops between teams, establishing regular check-ins, and measuring and celebrating shared success.
The Path Forward
In today’s market, you can’t afford departmental silos. Success comes from everyone working together, taking ownership, and focusing on the customer journey as a whole.
Need help creating alignment and accountability in your organization? Visit Milia Marketing (miliamarketing.com) to learn how we help fabrication businesses build high-performing teams that drive consistent growth.