The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.Heres a question for business leaders: When was the last time you or someone on your team had a frustrating experience as a customer? Perhaps you were shuffled between departments, asked to repeat information multiple times, left feeling like no one grasped your specific needs, or that the information changed depending on who you talked to.Now flip the scenario. How many of your customers might be experiencing that same frustration with your company right now?Most well-intended, talented teams can have blind spots with their own customer service. Its like sleeping in the guest room at your house to truly understand what your visitors experience. Even the most gracious hosts might not realize just how lumpy that mattress is, or how loud the dining room chairs are overhead.The truth is that delivering a seamless customer experience is one of the most significant challenges for B2B companies. Despite our obsession with customer satisfaction metrics, most organizations still prioritize internal structures over customer needs. I see it constantlythe customer lifecycle journey fractured across marketing, sales, customer success, and renewals, with each department guarding its own territory and creating an inconsistent customer experience.The hidden cost of fragmentationThis fragmentation is more than a customer annoyance. Its also a business liability. When departments operate in isolation, several things happennone of them good:Decision making becomes slower and more reactiveCustomers waste countless hours repeating themselves to different teamsValuable context gets lost in departmental handoffsInconsistent messaging and experiences create confusion and erode trustOpportunities to anticipate customer needs vanish into the gaps between teamsWhen departments operate in silos, the silos have a real and substantial impact on customer trust and loyalty. By flipping the traditional marketing structure on its head, youll gain a new and valuable perspective. You and your team will have the advantage of seeing things from the outside-in, and reap the benefit of turning customers into partners and champions. Lets discuss how to do it.Build bridges, not silosThe shift toward a unified customer lifecycle cant be done at a surface, optics-only level. A cross-department meeting or two to share ideas isnt going to cut it here. True unification means ripping off the Band-Aid and totally rethinking how we structure, measure, and reward our organizations.It sounds intimidating, but its possible. Ive lived this shift. Ive spearheaded this shift. And it is so, so worth it.Here are three key practices that make the biggest difference:1. Establish cross-functional ownershipBreaking down silos starts with shared accountability. Consider experimenting with creating cross-functional teams responsible for specific segments of the customer base. These teams might include representatives from marketing, sales, customer success, and technical support who each own a specific part of the customer experience.This approach ensures no customer falls through the cracks during handoffs between departments. It also creates natural collaboration points where team members develop a deeper understanding of the entire customer journey and can identify common pain points more quickly.2. Align metrics that matterDisconnected metrics breed disconnected experiences. Marketing teams traditionally focus on lead volume and pipeline contribution, while customer success teams track retention rates and satisfaction scores. These separate scorecards create invisible walls.The shift requires developing shared, customer-centric metrics that every department contributes to. Net retention rates, customer satisfaction scores, and customer lifetime value provide more holistic views of success than departmental vanity metrics.This enhances accuracy and reduces overlap and rework, while eliminating dangerous knowledge gaps.3. Leverage integrated technologyMetrics are critical, but you also have to inform those metrics with the right data. This might sound like the same thing as number two, but metrics are about asking the right questions, and data is about getting the right answers. A unified customer experience requires unified data. Without a single source of truth about customer interactions, teams operate with incomplete information and fail to make data-driven decisions.This doesnt have to be done manually, and probably shouldnt be. Integrated technology with a high-powered platform is critical to making this unification streamlined and accurate.If you continue using individual, specialized tools, they must share data seamlessly. When marketing automation, CRM, support ticketing, and product usage analytics feed into a comprehensive customer database, everyone gains visibility into the complete customer picture.Make the change realI know the kinds of results that can happen when an organization commits to unifying the customer experience:Reduced time-to-resolution for customer issuesIncreased customer retention rates and enhance customer trustHigher expansion revenue from existing accountsMore accurate prediction of renewal outcomesImproved employee satisfaction across customer-facing teamsBy breaking down silos and ensuring smooth handoffs between departments, unification can eliminate friction points that often lead to customer frustration and attrition. Who doesnt want to see positive results in key performance indicators like these?Lead the changeThis wont happen on its own. As executives, we must champion this approach from the top. The process starts with:Modeling collaborative behaviors across your leadership teamCreating clear customer journey maps that span departmental boundariesRedesigning incentive structures to reward collaborationInvesting in technologies that enable seamless information sharingMeasuring success through the customers eyes, not internal metricsThe first step is often the hardestacknowledging that our existing structures may be optimized for our convenience rather than our customers success.The competitive advantageReady to figure this out? Ready to spot opportunities earlier, solve problems faster, and build deeper customer relationships that competitors struggle to displace?One of the biggest reasons for making this shift is creating an environment where employees can focus on delivering value rather than navigating internal complexity. Teams become energized when they see the direct impact of their work on customer success. And happy employees = happy customers. The trust and loyalty you cultivate with your teams has a direct impact on the trust and loyalty your organization benefits from with your customers. When customers trust their vendors, they become more aligned, viewing you as a partner, not an adversary.I believe the business landscape is quickly moving toward prioritizing unified customer experiences. Clinging to fragmented approaches will put organizations at a disadvantage as customer expectations continue to rise.Why not start now?Melissa Puls is chief marketing officer and SVP of customer success at Ivanti.