Which Department Handles Customer Experience? All of Them.

Loyalty can be measured and it can be monetized. The sales & marketing departments may get customers in the door. Why not have a loyalty department that will keep them coming back through the door?

— Shep Hyken (@Hyken) March 17, 2018

That’s a tweet I posted based on an article I wrote not that long ago. Ian Spindley (@IanSpindley) responded with the following comment:

As far as you know, has #industry always called it sales & #marketing (just because it flows/sounds better)? To me, it makes no logical sense – Marketing (positioning), #Communication (mainly #promotion/conversation), then #Sales (conversion). . .then #loyalty to retain converts?

— Ian Spindley #FBPE (@IanSpindley) March 17, 2018

What Ian is saying is that there are different departments working on the customer’s journey. From marketing, which positions the company in the marketplace, to communications, which pushes the message out further, to sales, which is the official name we’ve given to the process of the point where the customer buys. And then, once they are a customer, we try to get them to come back, moving them from one-time buyers to repeat buyers.

My original post was about creating a special department or team that focuses on creating loyalty from the casual or one-time buyer. I still believe that’s an effort worth investing in. But, Ian’s response warranted a response:

How about this… Do such a good job that your customers wouldn’t want to go anywhere else… and will tell everyone how good you are. That’s marketing, communication, sales, and loyalty all rolled into one… customer service!

— Shep Hyken (@Hyken) March 17, 2018

Customer experience is the job of all these departments and more. It’s everything that a company does that touches the customer or causes the customer to think about anything related to the company. And, when everyone does their job – when everyone understands their role as it applies to CX – then the customer does what all of us hope they will do: come back and talk about us.

I always think back to what my friend Tom Baldwin, former chairman, CEO and president of Morton’s The Steakhouse, shared with me years ago about Morton’s customer service and CX strategy. He said their best marketing and sales strategy didn’t come from a department at the headquarters. It all was on the front line, where employees interact with and serve their guests. His philosophy was simple and profound: if the employees did a great job serving great steaks with exceptional customer service, customers tell others and come back. He believed that rather than investing in traditional advertising, instead, he would invest in people.

In short, your best marketing, communication, sales, and loyalty strategies, when working well, can all be thought of as one big customer experience!

Shep Hyken is a customer service/CX expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. Learn more about Shep’s customer service and customer experience keynote speeches and his customer service training workshops at www.Hyken.com. Connect with Shep on LinkedIn.