Leave No Sale Behind: Supercharge Growth By Integrating Sales With Service

Hacksaw Ridge tells the true story of Desmond Doss who served as a combat medic in World War II at the Battle of Okinawa. He was the first and only conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor for actions above and beyond the call of duty during World War II. He brought belief, integrity, courage, and heroism together to deliver amazing results in saving lives as he charged into the hell of battle without a weapon.

 

Consistent with the US military code, he didn't want to leave anyone behind.

In business, customers seek one primary thing from salespeople: a solution to a problem or a challenge from someone who truly understands them. Every business should commit to not leaving any customer behind and therefore to empowering everyone in their team, from every facet of the business, to heroically deliver what customers expect and need... exceptional personal service.

The age of the empowered customer has kicked down those old cubicle walls that previously separated sales and service teams. Customers now expect personalized and unified information from the first person who answers their call, opens their email or reads their social message and it doesn’t matter to them which department they sit in. 

If a business can’t provide this experience, all it takes is a quick browse online for an eager competitor to pounce. It’s not only tech-savvy millennials who are voting with their feet -70% of consumers and 82% of business buyers surveyed in the recent State of Sales Report from Salesforce agreed that technology has made it easier than ever to switch suppliers or service providers.

So, is it as simple as rounding up your sales and service teams and throwing them in a room together? 

If only it were that easy.

Map the customer journey 

You would be surprised at the number of businesses, large and small, that have no idea what their individual customer’s journey looks like in real life. This is a critical first step in aligning your teams. 

Firstly, challenge each team member to play the role of a customer in your business. They need to see through the customer's eyes and walk in their shoes. During this exercise, they must process and predict every touch point, decision, barrier, question and pain point. Chances are, the sales and service employees will identify things they could do differently or how they could improve the way they work together to ensure that the customer can seamlessly purchase your product or service and become an advocate in the market.

"Place an empty chair in every meeting to represent the customer. They are the most important person there so consider them as you discuss strategy, manage issues and make decisions." [paraphrase] Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder and CEO

Break down barriers

As I said earlier, if you have partitions in your office, pull them down. Collaboration and communication between sales and service people are paramount to providing the ultimate customer experience (CX). Recent Accenture research revealed that legacy business structures and siloed management practices are putting constraints on employees. In fact, 73% of executives surveyed in the Technology Vision 2017 report said that corporate bureaucracies are stifling innovation and productivity.

The only difference between sales and service roles in my view is when they’re in front of the customer: sales do the deal and set expectations, and service seeks to meet or exceed those expectations after they’ve signed the dotted line. 

It’s important to realize that one couldn't survive without the other, so it's up to business leaders to encourage a culture of sharing data, collaborating, integrating and talking to each other. The result: you have fewer silos, more internal touch points, better lines of communication, and better processes, which all lead to better customer experiences. 

Customers want a personal consultant, not a sales or service rep

Customers today expect a highly personalized online shopping experience, so why wouldn't they expect the same in a store, office or showroom? 

By connecting the two customer-facing departments and empowering them with a complete 360-degree view of the customer, they can enhance the customer experience, drive growth, loyalty, and advocacy. We all know what it’s like to be greeted by name at your local restaurant, this should be the case in any business regardless of who they speak to or how they engage at any given moment.

For instance, real estate website, Domain, integrated their Homepass app with their CRM to replace the old pen and paper open home check-in process with a seamless mobile experience. Each customer’s buying journey was recorded, analyzed and integrated to the agent’s CRM. The technology ensured real estate salespeople and the service call centers had the right data and information to have personalized conversations with the right customer at the right time. 

Sell smarter, not harder

I hate to hark on about the end of the old sales or service model, but change is happening right now. By 2020, 51% of consumers and 75% of business buyers expect companies to anticipate their needs and make relevant suggestions before customer contact. 

This can only be achieved if:

• Your business and employees know their customer journeys like clockwork.
  
• Leaders encourage and set an example for a culture of collaboration and data sharing. Leadership is behavior, not posters or slogans.
  
• Barriers between customer facing roles are abolished
  
• Salespeople sell smarter, not harder. This means leveraging the power of technology to make sense of masses of disparate sales and service data we have at our fingertips to provide meaningful insights, predictions, and actions.
   

     

Author Bio: Tony Hughes is a bestselling author, award-winning blogger and the most read LinkedIn Author globally on the topic of B2B sales leadership. Tony’s first book is a business bestseller with his second book, COMBO Prospecting, is available on Amazon here. He can be found on LinkedIn and at TonyHughes.com.au and RSVPselling.com

• Topic Participants

• Vinit Tibrewal

  

• Sticky Posts

• As Sales Person, Here are my New Year Resolutions. What are Yours?

  Being a salesperson, I keep learning from my mistakes and have noted a few changes that I need to make in my approach. I take these resolutions going into 2021, hoping to keep it going for as long as possible :) 1. I will not say "Yes, our product has

• Once Upon a Sales Meeting!

  It was an awkward silence in the meeting room "Uproar." John Kowalski, the new sales manager, was not happy with the team's performance. After scribbling something in the notepad, he decided to break the silence, John: I cannot believe you guys have been working like this. No reports, delusional forecasting, random targets, and no eye on the ball. Kevin: We followed Richard's orders. John: Well, Richard is not here anymore, is he? John walked up to the whiteboard, and wrote in big bold letters: "TARGET

• Recent Topics

• Zoho Cliq not working on airplanes

  Hi, My team and I have been having this constant issue of cliq not working when connected to an airplane's wifi. Is there a reason for this? We have tried on different Airlines and it doesn't work on any of them. We need assistance here since we are constantly

• Create an Eye-Catching Announcement Widget for Your Help Center

  Hello Everyone! In this week’s edition, let’s explore how to keep your customers updated with exciting news in the Help Center. See how ZylkerMobile wowed their customers by bringing updates right to their portal. ZylkerMobile, the renowned brand for

• Customer Management: #6 Common Mistakes in Customer Handling

  Managing customers doesn't usually fall apart overnight. More often, slight gaps in the process slowly become bigger problems. Incidents like missed follow-ups, billing confusion, and unhappy customers will lead to revenue loss. Many businesses don't

• Zoho Desk iOS app update: UI enhancement of picklist and multi picklist fields

  Hello everyone! We have enhanced the UI of the picklist and multiselect picklist fields on the Zoho Desk iOS app to provide a more refined, efficient, and user-friendly experience. We have now supported an option to Search within the picklist and multiselect

• Zoho Desk iOS app update: Revamped scribbles with Apple pencil kit

  Hello everyone! We’re excited to introduce a revamped Scribble experience, rebuilt from the ground up using Apple PencilKit for smooth strokes, proper scaling, and seamless image uploads. Please update the app to the latest version directly from the App

• Zoho Desk Android app update: Norwegian language support

  Hello everyone! In the most recent Android version of the Zoho Desk app update, we have brought in support to access the app in Norwegian language. We have introduced the Norwegian language on the IM module of the Zoho Desk app as well. Please update

• Payment Vouchers

  Is there any Payment Vouchers in Zoho? How can we create payment for non-trade vendors, i.e. professional fees, rent, and payment to commissioner income tax?

• When I click on PDF/PRINT it makes the invoice half size

  When I click PDF / Print for my invoice in Zoho Books, the generated PDF appears at half size — everything is scaled down, including the logo, text, and layout. The content does not fill the page as it should. Could someone advise what causes Zoho Books

• Search by contain letter in a column

  Hello, everyone I need a filter function that searches by letter in a cell, and it should be a macro. To clarify further, if I have a column with several names and I chose a search cell and what I want is search by a single letter, for example, "a" then

• Enrich your contact and company details automatically using the Data Enrichment topping

  Greetings, I hope you're all doing well. We're happy to announce the latest topping we've added to Bigin: The Data Enrichment topping, powered by WebAmigo. This topping helps you automatically enhance your contact and company records in Bigin. By leveraging

• Can add a colum to the left of the item in Zoho Books?

  I would need to add a column to the left of the item column in Books. When i create custom fields, i can only display them to the right of the item.

• Verifying Zoho Mail Functionality After Switching DNS from Cloudflare to Hosting Provider

  I initially configured my domain's (https://roblaxmod.com/) email with Zoho Mail while using Cloudflare to manage my DNS records (MX, SPF, etc.). All services were working correctly. Recently, I have removed my site from Cloudflare and switched my domain's

• AI Bot and Advanced Automation for WhatsApp

  Most small businesses "live" on WhatsApp, and while Bigin’s current integration is helpful, users need more automation to keep up with volume. We are requesting features based on our customer Feedbacks AI Bot: For auto-replying to FAQs. Keyword Triggers:

• 2025 Ask the Experts sessions wrap-up : Key highlights from the experts

  Here is a rewind journey of our Ask the Experts (ATE) Sessions, where we brought you expert insights and practical best practices together in one place. This recap highlights the key takeaways, learnings, and best practices from all these sessions so

• How to disable the edit option in subform

  How to disable the edit option in subform

• Move record from one custom module to another custom module

  Is it possible to create a button or custom field that will transfer a record from one custom module to another? I already have the 'Leads' module used for the Sr. Sales department, once the deal is closed they convert it to the 'Accounts' module. I would like to create a 'Convert' button for a custom module ('Locations') for the department that finds locations for each account. Once the location is secured, I want to move the record to another custom module called 'Secured Locations'. It's basically

• Notes Not Saving

  Hello,  My notes are continuously not saving.  I make sure to save them, I know the process to save them.  It is not operator error.  I go back into a Leads profile a while later and do not see the previous notes that I have made.  I then have to go back and do unnecessary research that would have been in the notes in the first place.  Not a good experience and it is frustrating.  Slows me down and makes me do unnecessary work.  Please resolve.   As a quick heads up, deleting cookies is not a fix

• Prefill form with CRM/Campaigns

  I created a form in zForms and created prefill fields. I added this to the CRM and selected the fields so when sending from the CRM, the form works great. However, I want to use the same form in Campaigns and I want it to pull the data from CRM (which

• Triggering a campaign automation from a Form

  I used Forms to create a lead form that is accessed by a button on my website. The field information flows into the CRM. However, I am trying to figure out how to use Campaign automations to start a workflow (series of campaign emails) that is triggered

• Employee Appraisal Applicability - Why is Date of Joining Hard-Coded?

  In the new (to me, at least) Performance Appraisal Cycle wizard, it's possible to set criteria to determine for whom the appraisal process should apply. This makes sense on its face. However, one MUST use the Date of Joining criterion as a filter. Why

• Formula fields

  Zoho People now supports formula fields. This post illustrates it. Formula fields are fields whose value is calculated instead of being entered by the user. Using this, number, decimal and date manipulations can be done. The value of this field could be numeric or date depending on the output of the formula. In date manipulations, the result will be given in milliseconds, which you can format as per you need. The operators we support are +, - , *, /. Formula fields get recalculated automatically

• Zobot operator information

  I am working on a zobot that calls a plug to send data to our API. I want the response data from that API to be shown only to the operator and not the customer. I have tried writing this data out to the visitorCity field but nothing gets updated on the

• Copy paste from word document deletes random spaces

  Hello Dear Zoho Team, When copying from a word document into Notebook, often I face a problem of the program deleting random spaces between words, the document become terribly faulty, eventhough it is perfect in its original source document (and without

• Is it possible to use module field filters via URL parameters?

  It would be really convenient if I could quickly link to a filter. For reference, this is the filter functionality I'm referring to: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm/customize-crm-account/advanced-filters/articles/advanced-filters For example: My

• Transitioning FESCO Bill Project to Zoho Sheets and Integration Options

  Hello Zoho Support, I'm considering transitioning my FESCO bill project from Google Sheets to Zoho Sheets and wanted to know if there are integration options to seamlessly migrate our existing work. You can view our platform here, any guidance would be

• Credit card

  Coming from another software, is it possible here to typically have credit card payment off, but independently per customer, click a box (possibly on the invoice when I go to to send) allowing that 1 allowed customer credit card payment, NOT ALL of my

• Lightbox Pop-up form

  I would like to embed my form using the lightbox pop up. I don't want it to load automatically. I want it to load when some clicks the button. I can see this option, however when I use the "show pop-up launch button" on the website, the button automatically

• Lightbox Pop-up form

  I would like to embed my form using the lightbox pop up. I don't want it to load automatically. I want it to load when some clicks the button. I can see this option, however when I use the "show pop-up launch button" on the website, the button automatically

• Connecting Portals from different Zoho apps

  Hi, I note that Zoho has functionality for customer portals for several of the Zoho apps, like CRM, Projects, Desk etc. Is there any way to connect these portals?  It would be great if we could give our customers access to a portal in which they could

• Customer Management: #5 Never Let the Customer Slip

  When Rahul started Knight's Watch Consulting, his focus was simple: deliver good work and keep clients happy. He offered one-time consulting projects, monthly advisory retainers and usage-based support for growing clients. Business was steady, and customers

• Deluge date time issue

  The deluge function info zoho.currentdate.toString("MMM/YYYY") returns Dec 2026 instead of 2025

• Zoho Projects Android and iOS app update: Mobile device permission based on user profiles

  Hello everyone! We have brought in support for mobile device permissions based on the user profiles which are configured in organization level. Administrators can now configure the permissions on the web app(projects.zoho.com) by following the steps mentioned

• treatment for rehires

        Hello,  we are aware of the fact that Zoho People at the moment does not has a provision for rejoining exited employees. But is there any quick fix or hack to this? It will be appreciated a lot. 

• Zoho Projects Android and iOS app update: Timesheet module is now renamed as 'Time Logs', delete option has been renamed to 'Trash'.

  Hello everyone! We have now renamed the Timesheet module as Time Logs and the delete option as 'Trash' on the Zoho Projects Android and iOS app. Time Logs Android: Time Logs iOS: Trash option Android: Trash option iOS: Please update the app to the latest

• Zoho Mail app update: Manage profile picture, Chinese (Traditional) language support

  Hello everyone! In the latest version (v3.1.9) of the Zoho Mail app update, we have brought in support to manage profile picture. You can now set/ modify the profile picture within the app. To add a new profile picture, please follow the below steps:

• Reminders for Article Approval

  Is there a way to send reminders for approvers to review articles and approve/deny them? I'm not seeing that option anywhere.

• Add Full-Screen Viewing for Quartz Recordings in the Client Interface

  Hi Zoho Team, We would like to request an enhancement to the Zoho Quartz client interface when viewing submitted recordings. Current Limitation: When viewing a Quartz recording from the client (user) interface, there is currently no option to switch the

• 2025 Recap: A Year to Remember | Zoho Inventory

• Important Update : Pipedrive deprecated fields no longer supported in Zoho Analytics

  Dear Pipedrive users, We would like to inform you about a recent update related to your Pipedrive integration with Zoho Analytics. The Pipedrive team has deprecated certain fields from their application. You can find more details in the official Pipedrive

• Product Updates in Zoho Workplace applications | November 2025

  Hello Workplace Community, Let’s take a look at the new features and enhancements that went live across all Workplace applications this November. Zoho Mail Format comments easily using Slash Commands With Slash commands, you can easily format text, insert

• Next Page