Are Conflicting Priorities Destroying Your Customer Journey?

Ever wonder why your customers don’t stick around or why you seem to lose them at critical moments? It might have nothing to do with your product or service that’s driving them away—it could be internal. Conflicting priorities between your teams could be wreaking havoc on your customer journey, leaving your customers with inconsistent experiences and unmet expectations. The reality is, without internal alignment, the path from prospect to loyal customer can get pretty bumpy.

Let’s take a closer look at how misaligned priorities can affect your customer journey and what you can do to fix it.

What is the Customer Journey?

Before diving into the impact of conflicting priorities, let’s quickly define what we mean by the customer journey. It’s the full experience a customer has with your business, from the moment they become aware of your brand to their interactions after purchase. This journey is made up of key touchpoints: awareness, consideration, purchase, and post-purchase. 

When this journey runs smoothly, your customers are more likely to feel satisfied, build trust with your brand, and become repeat buyers. But what happens when things go wrong? More often than not, it’s because of misaligned priorities within your organization.

The Problem with Conflicting Priorities

Conflicting priorities between departments like sales, marketing, and customer service are more common than you might think. Each team has its own goals, but if those goals aren’t aligned, it leads to breakdowns in communication and missteps along the customer journey.

Here are a few common examples:

• Marketing might be focused on generating as many leads as possible, while sales is only interested in closing high-value deals.
• Customer service is prioritizing satisfaction, but the leadership team is pushing for upsells and higher revenue per customer.

When these departments aren’t on the same page, it’s your customers who pay the price, as they receive mixed messages, incomplete information, or—worse—are left hanging without the support they need.

Did you know? A study by LinkedIn found that 87% of sales and marketing leaders say alignment between sales and marketing enables critical business growth, yet only 36% believe their teams are aligned effectively.

How Conflicting Priorities Damage the Customer Journey

Let’s break down exactly how conflicting priorities can cause chaos at different stages of the customer journey:

1. Awareness: Marketing might be promoting one set of messages, but sales is pitching something else entirely. The customer is left feeling confused about what your company actually offers.
2. Consideration: Marketing hands off leads that sales doesn’t consider ready, resulting in lost opportunities or frustrating follow-ups.
3. Purchase: Misaligned priorities between sales and service teams can lead to overpromising and under delivering, damaging trust at a crucial moment.
4. Post-Purchase: If customer service is focused on retention but leadership is pressuring for more upsells, customers might feel pressured or unsupported after they’ve already made a purchase.

When your teams are pulling in different directions, the experience for your customers can feel fragmented. Instead of a smooth transition from one stage to the next, they encounter roadblocks, leading to frustration, dissatisfaction, and ultimately, lost business.

The Business Impact of Misalignment

A broken customer journey isn’t just a customer problem—it’s a business problem. Conflicting priorities lead to lost revenue, as customers drop off at various stages of their journey. On top of that, a negative experience can harm your brand reputation, making it harder to attract new customers.

Consider this: Studies show that companies with tightly aligned teams grow revenue 34% faster than those with misaligned teams. When your teams are aligned, everyone is working toward the same goal—delivering a cohesive and delightful customer experience. And that’s where growth happens.

Steps to Align Your Teams and Protect the Customer Journey

The good news is, you don’t have to let conflicting priorities ruin your customer journey. Here are some steps you can take to align your teams and get everyone working toward the same goal:

1. Create a Unified Vision: Start by setting clear, company-wide goals that prioritize the customer experience. Every team should understand how their work impacts the customer journey and the overall success of the business.
2. Encourage Cross-functional Communication: Regular communication between departments is key. Marketing, sales, and service should be in constant conversation, ensuring they’re aligned on goals, messaging, and how to best support the customer at every touchpoint.
3. Establish Shared Metrics: Rather than each team focusing on different success metrics, create a set of shared metrics that reflect customer success at each stage. This could include metrics like customer lifetime value, customer satisfaction scores, or net promoter scores.
4. Leverage Technology for Alignment: Using a unified platform like HubSpot CRM can help ensure that your teams are working from the same playbook. HubSpot brings together your sales, marketing, and service efforts, making it easier to track progress, communicate, and deliver a seamless customer experience.

At Brightlark, we specialize in helping businesses align their teams using HubSpot to create a unified customer journey. Whether it’s through CRM implementations, optimizations, or ongoing management, we can help you ensure that your customers aren’t falling through the cracks.

Conflicting priorities between teams don’t just create internal frustrations—they can destroy your customer journey. When departments aren’t working together, it’s the customer who suffers, leading to lost opportunities, damaged trust, and ultimately, lost revenue. But by aligning your teams and focusing on a shared vision, you can transform the customer experience, build lasting relationships, and drive sustainable growth.

Want to see how aligned your teams really are? Contact us today for a free assessment.