It’s been a long running theme of this blog that marketing teams should do their best to communicate with other departments better. The reasons are simple. Marketing has a plan on how to sell the company’s products and services, but they’re not the ones who actually do the selling. They put the plan in motion and hope for the best.

A sales team, or customer service team in some companies, needs to be armed with the right answers and the right offers when they get an interested consumer on the phone (same goes for email, live chat, in person, or any other method of selling or answering customer questions).

So it’s the job of the marketing team to prepare the sales team. Here’s how:

1. Before a new campaign is launched, hold a training session with the sales and customer service teams. Prepare a presentation and sell them the promotion just as they would sell it to your prospects.
   
   
2. Host a question and answer session to make sure that everyone on the team understands exactly what the offer is and exactly how its worded.
   
   
3. Create a two-way communication system that allows members of the sales or customer service teams to get their questions answered after the promotion or campaign is launched.
   
   
4. Appoint someone from market to liaise with the other teams and hold them accountable.