How to Build an Effective Marketing Team Structure with a Focus on Customer Service

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Companies of all sizes are increasingly focusing on customer service , particularly in how they structure their sales and marketing teams.

According to the 2017 Gartner Marketing Organization Capabilities study , “Marketing organization structures vary widely, but data shows a decline in popularity in functional organizations and a commensurate increase in customer experience focus.”

By 2020, “21% of marketers will structure their organizations around customer experience.” (The full study is available to Gartner clients.)

Investing in CX as a marketing team is an investment in customer loyalty and retention. This brand loyalty is essential for a healthy small business.

how to build an effective marketing team structure that prioritizes customer experience
The time, energy, and resources it will take for an enterprise-level company to change the structure and focus of its marketing strategy are enormous. This gives small businesses the chance to increase types of usa phone number database available from us their agility by implementing this new marketing focus faster than the titans in their industry.

In this article, we apply the Gartner survey results to three questions:
1. What does it mean to have a CX focus?
 
2. How can I build a CX focus into my marketing structure?
 
3. What type of job candidate will thrive in this new marketing structure?


What does it mean to be CX-focused?
Simply put, being customer experience centric means your marketing team is focused on the customer.

A CX-focused marketing organization strives to understand, anticipate, and meet customer needs in pursuit of profitable and long-term growth.
Let's break it down a bit:

Marketing that seeks to understand, anticipate and satisfy depends on a marketing team focused on developing and responding to customer interactions, always with the goal of meeting (or ideally exceeding) their expectations.

This is a marketing team with a strategic understanding of customer data driven personas, customer journey mapping and customer analytics .

By moving from a “functional organization” (structured by job title and/or team, e.g. advertising, sales, customer service) to a CX-focused one, marketing teams take on greater responsibility for the entire customer journey.

Building a marketing team around the dynamic nature of the customer experience takes some of the pressure off the organizational structure. The focus should be on the abilities and styles of the team members, not on how the team is organized.

It's also a great opportunity to leverage resources and collaborate on things that were previously limited to the organization's boundaries.