Effective communication across an organization is essential to sharing and using voice of the customer. And there are plenty of additional reasons to strengthen ties. Opportunities for ongoing product and service improvements and innovations almost always involve other areas. Root-causes must often be addressed elsewhere; an issue that deteriorates high levels of customer satisfaction may involve processes far beyond the point of service delivery.

Here are some trends I’m seeing among service leaders getting the best results:

• They develop strong working relationships with the people running other areas. (You can’t develop ties with “departments.”)
• They do their homework on the needs and objectives in those areas.
• They ensure that projects and initiatives support the organization’s overall objectives (e.g., for revenue, market share, efficiency, customer loyalty, etc.).
• They are tenacious in developing people, processes, reports, and policies that enable robust and ongoing communication.

There’s an added benefit to these efforts: Better internal communication invariably improves the perception of the contact center’s role and value—that leads to higher levels of support, responsiveness and collaboration from others. It’s a virtuous cycle.