7 Ways To Break Organizational Silos; The Silent Killer Of Customer Experience

🚀 Are your departments working together or just co-existing in polite chaos?

Organizational silos are the silent killer of customer experience. Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, IT, Finance, HR—they all have their own priorities, their own goals, and their own version of success. But do those priorities align? More often than not, they don’t, and the result is a disjointed, frustrating experience for customers (and let’s be honest, for employees too).

If you’ve ever tried to resolve a simple issue with a company only to be bounced between departments like a human pinball, you’ve experienced the dark side of silos firsthand.

In this episode, Colin Shaw and Professor Ryan Hamilton dive deep into how silos are sabotaging your business and—more importantly—how to break them down. Colin also shares a particularly painful real-world example of a never-ending kitchen renovation that perfectly illustrates just how badly siloed teams can fail. (Hint: You’ll never look at a home improvement store the same way again.)

💡 Key Takeaways:

🔹 Common goals mean nothing if they aren’t lived out. Every company says “We put customers first”—but do they actually? If your Finance team makes policies that inconvenience customers, the answer is no.

🔹 Measure what matters. If Sales is rewarded for closing deals, but Implementation is penalized for poor customer satisfaction, you’ve got a problem. Aligning incentives across departments is the only way to drive real customer-centric behavior.

🔹 Cross-functional projects prevent disasters. Ever had a marketing team promise something a product team couldn’t deliver? Or a sales team sell a service that implementation couldn’t support? That’s what happens when silos rule the day.

🔹 Job shadowing changes everything. Want your IT team to build better systems for Customer Service? Have them answer support calls for a day. Want your Finance team to be more customer-friendly? Have them sit in on refund requests.

🔹 Socializing isn’t just for fun—it’s strategic. People who know each other personally collaborate more effectively. The simple act of breaking bread (or sharing a drink) can go a long way toward bridging the gaps between teams.

🎤 Best Quote from the Episode:

"I once had an assistant who scheduled my meetings across London without realizing she had me zigzagging across the city like a lost tourist. After one day shadowing me, she never made that mistake again. People don’t realize the pain they cause others until they see it firsthand." – Colin Shaw

About the Hosts:

 Colin Shaw is a LinkedIn 'Top Voice' with a massive 284,000 followers and 86,000 subscribers to his 'Why Customers Buy' newsletter. Shaw is named one of the world's 'Top 150 Business Influencers' by LinkedIn. His company, Beyond Philosophy LLC, has been selected four times by the Financial Times as a top management consultancy. Shaw is co-host of the top 1.5% podcast 'The Intuitive Customer'—with over 600,000 downloads—and author of eight best-sellers on customer experience, Shaw is a sought-after keynote speaker. Follow Colin on LinkedIn.

Ryan Hamilton is a Professor of Marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School and co-author of 'The Intuitive Customer' book. An award-winning teacher and researcher in consumer psychology, he has been named one of Poets & Quants' "World’s Best 40 B-School Profs Under 40." His research focuses on how brands, prices, and choice architecture influence shopper decision-making, and his findings have been published in top academic journals and covered by major media outlets like The New York Times and CNN. His work highlights how psychology can help firms better understand and serve their customers. Ryan has a new book launch in June 2025 called “The Growth Dilemma: Managing Your Brand When Different Customers Want Different Things” Harvard Business Press Follow Ryan on LinkedIn.