A recent Corporate Executive Board study revealed that 87 percent of the terms that sales and marketing departments use to describe each other are negative. In a perfect world, the two departments would function in tandem to achieve the goals of winning and retaining loyal customers.
In the real world, however, the two departments are often fraught with internal processes that fail to link up with the other department and miscommunication—all of which result in less-than-optimal performances from both sides.What’s the solution? A marketing-and-sales service-level agreement (SLA). Having an SLA in place will improve both marketing and sales processes by facilitating cooperation between these frequently disparate departments.
HOW SLAS WORK
As with every venture that involves more than one person, the goal of acquiring and retaining customers relies on the cooperation of all principal players. If you have attended even a single management meeting, it is likely that you have heard someone say, "Everyone should be on the same page.”
That saying may be cliché, but it’s actually true: every business will work more efficiently when all departments know what the others are doing and how each is contributing to the bigger picture. A marketing-and-sales SLA helps to ensure that this happens.
Simply put, a marketing-and-sales SLA is a formal agreement between the two departments that clearly defines the expectations of each department regarding the performance of the other. An SLA ensures that both marketing and sales are working for a common goal, with each department held accountable for its own results.
WHAT SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN AN SLA?
The general goals of an SLA are to:
If an SLA is to work, it must be given teeth. In other words, the SLA should contain a well-established way of measuring the performance of both marketing and sales. It is only through analysis of the results that the effectiveness of your SLA can be truly illustrated.
THE POWER OF "THE SAME PAGE"
A well-designed SLA bridges the gap between marketing and sales. There are many benefits of having a working process between the two departments, but the results you’ll notice first are:
It is clear that the time you spend hammering out a marketing-and-sales SLA is time well spent. But because your strategies must change as your company continues to grow and your customer base evolves, it is essential to revisit your SLA from time to time to tweak the performance expectations of both departments.