5 Ways Businesses Can Improve Communication Across Multiple Departments

Have you ever contacted a business with a problem only to be passed from one department to another, as no one seemed to have the answer? You explain your issue to one person and then have to go and explain it all again to the next person and in the end the first person you spoke to has no idea what you’ve told the second person.

This is a real pain for the customer and is a classic example of the problem that exists in many organizations where the various departments don’t communicate with each other. Sales, customer support, finance and operations all working in silos means that key bits of information can get lost and that leads to delays, errors and confusion.

For larger organizations, improving communication is often a central part of Enterprise Customer Experience Management, which focuses on creating consistent interactions across different teams and customer touchpoints. However, businesses of any size can improve collaboration by making a few practical changes.

1. Create a Central Place for Sharing Information

A big communications problem is that departments keep their information in separate systems.

Sales may be logging the customer conversations in one system, support in another and finance in yet another. That makes it very difficult for people to find the information they’re looking for.

Imagine a customer getting in touch with support about an incorrect invoice. If the support team can’t see the customer’s purchase history and/or their billing details then it’s going to be a significantly more complicated job to resolve the issue.

A shared CRM system means staff can get the information they need without having to go to every other department and keep asking.

The aim isn’t to give everybody access to everything. Sensitive data should still be protected with the appropriate permissions.

Instead, ensure that staff can easily find the information they need to do their jobs.

Start by working out what the various departments are regularly asking for and see if those can be made available to them more easily.

2. Establish Clear Communication Procedures

Even with good comms tools there can be problems if the staff aren’t clear as to when and how to use them.

For instance, would a customer complaint be dealt with by email, entered into the support system or discussed directly with a manager?

No clear steps and important requests could easily be missed or sent to the wrong person.

Businesses can be more consistent by simply establishing guidelines for the common situations they encounter.

These might include:

• Which department takes the various types of customer queries?
• How urgent issues should be escalated?
• Where employees are to record customer interactions.
• Who is to follow up on the requests that remain unresolved?
• How changes to policies or procedures should be communicated.

Keep the guidelines simple and easy to locate.

A convoluted process which nobody actually follows is not going to fix the communication problems. Clear roles and simple instructions are far better.

3. Encourage Departments to Work Together

In some organizations, departments get so focused on their own bit of work that they completely lose sight of the impact their work has on other departments.

For instance the sales team may promise a delivery date without checking with the ops team that it’s actually possible to deliver.

If the order is late then customer support are going to have to deal with the resulting complaints.

This, of course, drives both staff and customers up the wall.

Regular communication between the departments can help prevent these issues from occurring.

Short weekly meetings with people from sales, ops and customer support can give everyone an opportunity to talk about the issues they’re facing (both the ones that are currently on their radar and the ones that are coming up).

These meetings should have a clear objective, they shouldn’t just be another thing added to everyone’s agenda.

Focus on the decisions that will require input from a number of teams, the issues that aren’t resolved and the changes that could impact the customer.

When you understand what the other departments do you’re in a much better position to work towards common objectives.

4. Make Customer Handoffs More Effective

Customers shouldn’t be forced to start from scratch every time their query moves to a different department.

Unfortunately, poor handoffs are still a major source of frustration.

Imagine a customer coming to us about a refund. The support rep sends it over to finance but doesn’t include any of the details around the original issue.

Finance then get in touch with the customer to ask for the information they’ve already provided.

A better approach is to establish a standard process for routing customer queries between departments.

Each handoff should include:

• The customer’s issue and relevant background information.
• Any actions already taken.
• What still needs to be resolved.
• The department or employee responsible for the next step.

Whenever possible, the business should retain ownership of the inquiry rather than the customer having to chase various departments.

For instance, the original support rep could remain the customer’s point of contact whilst we worked with finance in the background.

This is much smoother for the customer and eliminates a lot of repetition.

5. Use Feedback to Identify Communication Gaps

Managers won’t always be aware of the communication problems straight away.

Employees may find their own ways of getting around the inefficient processes, whilst the customer is left sitting with delays and no idea why.

Regular feedback can be a great way of identifying where the information is falling through the cracks.

Ask the staff which of their tasks tend to require a lot of follow-up messages, a lot of re-explanations, and a lot of extra approvals.

Customer complaints can also be a source of useful insight.

If customers are regularly reporting that they’re getting conflicting information from different departments, then you need to look at why that is.

For instance, the customer service team might be operating under an old returns policy whilst the sales team have already moved to the new one.

Fixing the problem may be as simple as updating the shared docs and ensuring all departments get the policy changes at the same time.

It’s also useful to track things such as how long it takes to resolve inquiries, how many times a customer has to get in touch again, and how many requests are passed between teams.

These are the sorts of indicators that can help a business determine whether its communication improvements are having the desired effect.

Better Internal Communication Creates Better Customer Experiences

Customers don’t normally think about how a business is structured internally. All they expect is that staff will be able to give them the right information, resolve their issues and deliver on what they’ve promised.

When the departments communicate well then it’s far easier to meet those expectations.

Sharing information, having clear roles, better handoffs and regular working together will go a long way to reduce confusion and get people working more efficiently.

Businesses don’t need to go right back to the drawing board and completely rework their way of doing things in order to see improvements. Just identify where communication tends to break down and make sensible changes to address those particular problems.

When your staff has the right information and the right support, customers are less likely to experience delays, get different answers, or have to go through the same process twice.

In the end, better communication between the departments doesn’t just make the business easier to run; it makes things better for the people who rely on it.