It is important to have all your customer-facing departments — CSRs, sales, sales support, finance, legal, implementation (sometimes referred to as sales engineering), training, tech support, anyone in product development that might have occasion to speak with a customer — on board and aligned with the company’s brand, messaging, and values. This is how you create a true market-driven company.

The most overlooked aspect of marketing is FULFILLMENT. The customer has signaled a demand for your product or service; now, will you deliver what the customer is expecting to receive, and will you make the customer experience in dealing with your company as seamless and user-friendly as possible?

It’s a common mistake to overlook the importance of the departments listed two paragraphs above in maximizing the customer experience. But you need to have business processes in place before you roll out the product. Making up this stuff as you go along, or having any of these departments functioning at cross purposes, can quickly damage both the relationship with the customer and your company’s reputation. I’ve seen it happen too often.