Purpose

Rising expectations for exceptional customer experiences demand strategic amalgamation of cross-functional, customer-focused teams (marketing/sales/service departments). However, the long history of interface conflicts between functional teams continues to attract research attention. Past research has given more attention to conflicts between marketing and sales teams than to triadic interface conflict between custom-focused teams and their sub-conflicts in a business-to-business (B2B) sales process. The purpose of this research paper is to quantify the triadic interface conflicts and associated sub-conflicts between customer-focused teams, discuss conflict resolution strategies and perform a sensitivity analysis (SA) to give a fuller account of functional team conflict.

Design/methodology/approach

Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) based in the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is proposed for identifying and resolving conflicts in customer-focused team interfaces. A group of 30 managers of a large electronics company participated in this research. The authors collected the data from customer-focused team managers during training sessions on interface conflicts and conflict management/resolution strategies. The authors perform SA to test the robustness of conflict resolution strategy rankings.

Findings

The findings reveal that managers adjudge task as the most crucial conflict attribute driving teams apart, followed by lack of communication. For the sub-conflicts, managers considered how to do the task as the most important conflict attribute, followed by lack of regular meetings. For conflict resolution strategies, managers regarded collaboration or integration as the overall best strategy, followed by compromise. Leveraging the AHP-based MCDM to resolve customer-focused team interface conflicts provides managers with the confidence in the consistency and the robustness of these solutions. By testing the SA, it is also discovered that the final outcome stayed robust (stable) regardless when the priorities of the main criteria influencing the decision are increased and decreased by 5% in every combinations.

Research limitations/implications

This study examined only a large B2B company in the electronics industry in African and Middle East settings, focusing on interface conflicts among customer-focused departments. Future research could address these limitations.

Practical implications

This paper advances our understanding of customer-focused team interface conflicts in a B2B sales process. It also provides valuable insights on effective management of major and sub-interface conflicts. This paper provides a framework for and practical insights into how interface conflicts that are prevalent in marketing, sales and service sectors can be resolved to improve customer experience and business performance.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the literature by developing an AHP-based MCDM, which not only extends our conceptual understanding of the interface conflicts between customer-focused teams by emphasizing their triadic nature but also provides valuable strategies and insights into the practical resolution of such conflicts in a B2B firm’s sales process. Methodologically, SA is valuable to ensuring the robustness of the conflict resolution strategies’ rankings that will influence relevant pragmatic decision-making.

中文翻译：

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为什么我们不能相处融洽？利用基于 AHP 的多标准决策解决 B2B 公司中以客户为中心的团队界面冲突

目的

对卓越客户体验的期望不断提高，需要跨职能、以客户为中心的团队（营销/销售/服务部门）进行战略合并。然而，功能团队之间界面冲突的悠久历史继续引起研究关注。过去的研究更多地关注营销和销售团队之间的冲突，而不是专注于定制的团队之间的三元界面冲突及其在企业对企业 (B2B) 销售过程中的子冲突。本研究论文的目的是量化以客户为中心的团队之间的三元界面冲突和相关的子冲突，讨论冲突解决策略并执行敏感性分析 (SA) 以更全面地说明职能团队冲突。

设计/方法/方法

提出了基于层次分析法（AHP）的多标准决策（MCDM），用于识别和解决以客户为中心的团队界面中的冲突。一家大型电子公司的 30 名管理人员参与了这项研究。作者在有关界面冲突和冲突管理/解决策略的培训课程中收集了以客户为中心的团队经理的数据。作者执行 SA 以测试冲突解决策略排名的稳健性。

发现

研究结果表明，管理者认为任务是导致团队分离的最关键冲突属性，其次是缺乏沟通。对于子冲突，管理者认为如何完成任务是最重要的冲突属性，其次是缺乏定期会议。对于冲突解决策略，管理者将协作或整合视为整体最佳策略，其次是妥协。利用基于 AHP 的 MCDM 解决以客户为中心的团队界面冲突，让管理人员对这些解决方案的一致性和稳健性充满信心。通过测试 SA，还发现无论何时影响决策的主要标准的优先级在每种组合中增加和减少 5%，最终结果都保持稳健（稳定）。

研究限制/影响

本研究仅调查了非洲和中东地区电子行业的一家大型 B2B 公司，重点关注以客户为中心的部门之间的接口冲突。未来的研究可以解决这些限制。

实际影响

本文加深了我们对 B2B 销售过程中以客户为中心的团队界面冲突的理解。它还为有效管理主要和子界面冲突提供了宝贵的见解。本文为如何解决营销、销售和服务部门中普遍存在的界面冲突以改善客户体验和业务绩效提供了一个框架和实用见解。

原创性/价值

本研究通过开发基于层次分析法的 MCDM 为文献做出了贡献，它不仅通过强调以客户为中心的团队之间的界面冲突的三元性质，扩展了我们对界面冲突的概念理解，而且还为实际解决此类冲突提供了有价值的策略和见解。 B2B 公司的销售流程。在方法论上，SA 对于确保冲突解决策略排名的稳健性很有价值，这将影响相关的务实决策。