From Cellmates to Soulmates: Integrating Sales and Service

This book is about customer relationship management, just not in the typical sense. Let’s be honest. The people responsible for maintaining customer relationships in your company don’t get along. Sales and service don’t share the same goals; they don’t coordinate work; they barely communicate. Is it any wonder customers come and go as if they’re moving through a revolving door?

The authors describe in practical, real world terms how to integrate (literally) a company’s sales efforts with its service delivery. When sales and service work together to develop and maintain healthy relationships with customers, the company achieves greater profitability by improving customer acquisition, and building customer loyalty with a purpose: to generate repeat, recurring and referral sales.

When Mark W. Heisler and Suzanne Baldino Jones first worked together over ten years ago they were the personification of CellMates. Heisler and his focused perspective on sales did little to endear himself to Baldino Jones who led the service organization. It didn’t take too long for them to realize that their differences: professions, education, psyches and gender (just to name a few), when joined together, were powerful and valuable advantages. So in 1996, they founded the Competitive Business Strategy Group (CBSG), a management-consulting firm specializing in customer acquisition, retention and loyalty. Mark and Suzanne’s Sales and Service Integration model is the outcome of their personal quest to become sales and service "SoulMates."

In addition to their client consulting, they speak regularly at industry associations and corporate conferences. Their work and writings have been featured in many national publications.

Mark lives in Huntingdon Valley, Pa with his wife and two children. Suzanne, with her husband and their Pug, Kobe, reside in Vineland, NJ.