Do you ever feel like employees in other departments don't care about customers?

Years ago, I worked for a company that sold uniforms embroidered with clients' logos. My job was providing customer service and growing sales.

Getting new uniforms produced and shipped involved a lot of other departments. Many created frustrating customer service problems that cost us business.

• Shipping delays

• Quality issues

• Billing errors

It was frustrating, because people in these departments didn't seem to care.

One day, a chance encounter in the cafeteria completely changed my perspective. The cafeteria was crowded, so Donna and a few other employees from accounting offered me a seat at their table.

I was initially hesitant—accounting had caused me its fair share of problems. But I'm glad I joined them. That lunch changed everything I knew about internal teamwork.

Here's what I learned.

Lesson 1: Build Relationships

Teamwork is a two-way street. You must get to know and appreciate other people if you expect them to know and appreciate you.

My company discouraged relationships. Every interaction with other departments was done either by computer or proxy.

For instance, I set up a new client by entering their information into our customer relationship management (CRM) system. Someone from accounting would use that information to bill the client.

If there was a billing error, I was expected to go to my boss, who would talk to the accounting boss, who would talk to the accountant to work out the issue. That became a giant game of telephone that could literally take several days to resolve.

That day at lunch, I discovered that Donna did the accounting for many of my clients.

A lightbulb went off. No longer did I need to wait a week to solve an accounting issue. I could go straight to my friend Donna and we could figure it out in a few minutes.

It was big company, and nearly two thousand people worked at our facility alone, but I quickly identified key people in other departments. A buyer in merchandising, an expediter in fulfillment, a graphic designer in the art department, and a customer service rep on another team all become part of my network.

I went out of my way to build positive relationships with them because I knew they could help me serve my customers.

Action: Identify important relationships to build with people other departments.

Lesson 2: Listen

Listening to others brings new, unexpected insights. It’s also a sign of respect, and an important way to build relationships. For instance, people in other departments often aren't as uncaring as they seem.

Donna had her own frustrations with the billing process. Carless salespeople often neglected to include the correct billing information or the customer’s purchase order when entering a sale. By listening to her, I realized there were things I could do to make it easier for her to send accurate and timely bills.

So while I was happy to have a direct connection to the accounting department, Donna was just as happy to be able to call me when she needed help.

Listening also helped me improve procedures.

Our art department could take up to two weeks to create the pattern our embroidery machines used to sew a client's logo onto a uniform. Different materials required new embroidery patterns, so the pattern for a polyester-blend, jersey-knit polo shirt would not work on a nylon jacket.

That meant I had to request a new pattern and wait two weeks each time a client ordered a new type of garment for their uniforms.

These delays cost me a lot of business. One day, I met with Cat, one of the graphic artists, to listen to the art department’s challenges and learn more about their work.

Cat showed me that some embroidery patterns could be used on multiple types of garments. She also explained that I could save time by requesting a new logo be designed for multiple types of garments at once. This way, when a client ordered a new item, I already had an embroidery pattern ready for whatever item they ordered.

This insight helped me avoid the two week art set-up delay on more orders, which allowed me to earn more business. The art department was happy because creating the same logo for multiple garment types at once was more efficient.

Action: Listen to people from other departments to understand the challenges they face. You might even learn a few shortcuts.

Lesson 3: Help others win

The best way to get other people to care about your goals is to help them achieve their goals. People in other departments are far more cooperative when they believe you are helping them win.

The production department mandated a minimum order size of six because the smallest embroidery machines stitched logos on six garments at one time. This was a problem because my biggest client ordered thousands of uniforms per year, but they had multiple locations that each had just a handful of employees.

We’d lose the sale when my client wanted to order three shirts for a new, part-time employee or replace a single jacket.

I decided to spend some time talking to people in production, where I learned they were under enormous pressure to operate more efficiently. To them, losing an order for three shirts wasn't as important as keeping their costs down.

Working together, we were able to find a solution.

While my customer placed a lot of small orders, we often received orders from multiple locations at the same time. Production agreed to combine these orders to meet the six item minimum, and then the fulfillment center would separate the items and ship them to their individual locations.

This was easy to do since we already had a process to facilitate sorting items this way. One service my company provided was sorting and bagging uniforms for each individual employee, so they were easier for clients to distribute.

Action: Collaborate with other departments to find win-win solutions.

Epilogue

My job at the uniform company taught me a lot about teamwork.

On one hand, I worked with my network to reduce errors, decrease lead time, and increase sales. On the other hand, I quickly learned my initiative wasn't supported by leadership.

Our general manager was coasting towards retirement and did as little work as possible. The sales director who oversaw our department didn't understand how operational problems hurt sales and actively discouraged me from connecting with people in other departments on my own. My boss, the sales manager, was so scared of his boss (the director) that he would avoid attracting attention at all costs.

The company eventually restructured and our entire department was laid off. By then, I had learned a bonus lesson about teamwork: when leaders absolutely refuse to work together, it's time to go somewhere else.

The day that layoffs were announced, I had taken the day off to interview at another company. Two weeks later, I had a new job.

Hope is not lost! My new book, The Guaranteed Customer Experience, shows you how to get other departments to buy-in to customer experience.