Just got to read an old archived article Seeing the white elephant. It sounded too familiar to customer experiences many of us have had.
It is not difficult for companies to understand this and make it work. But, I guess the challenge is "breaking down" the silos. Which then brings me to the next point of aligning objectives across departments which becomes difficult. Somehow, I have always felt the word "my department" is starting point of this problem. Unfortunately, there is no middleware to connect, disconnected human minds!The other problem that comes in the way, is the "conflicting" revenue objectives across these "departments" . I have also observed the lack of understanding of issues amongst line managers ,who have no appreciation of problems that other services ( am not calling them departments) have, while delivering the overall experience to customers.
The key to making it work, is drawing out
a. Customer Interaction Experience Maps
b. Identifying overlapping services within the company
c. Resolving conflicting revenue objectives amongst these departments
These can be only starting points. Marketing departments have to move to "Customer Interaction Design" just like their Product Design departments have been doing for years.
Remember, customers interact with a company not a department!