Miscommunication within SaaS teams can break your interaction with leads, prospects, and customers. In most cases, communication issues happen between internal stakeholders at different levels of the organizational framework.

In this article, we’ll discuss miscommunication within the organizational structure of a SaaS company and how it disrupts interaction with target audiences.

Let’s get started.

Top-down Communication

Definition

Top-down communication refers to the flow of information between the upper levels of the organizational hierarchy (executives and managers) and the operational ones (team members, contractors, freelancers).

This type of communication is initiated by senior management and executives and focuses on spreading information to team members at different levels.

Goals

• Convey strategic directions
• Share company goals
• Achieve team alignment
• Share business and team updates
• Enforce company policies
• Facilitate changes
• Provide clarity
• Establish accountability
• And more
  

Miscommunication during top-down communication may involve issues such as: 

1. The broken phone

‍A message conveyed by senior management may get distorted as it moves down the hierarchy.

📓 Example:

The CEO shares a strategic change in defining the Ideal Customer Profile with the marketing and sales VPs. The VPs inadvertently alter the message when communicating it to their teams due to misunderstandings or personal biases.

As a result, the marketing and sales teams may understand the strategic changes differently and implement misaligned communication initiatives.

2. Omission

‍Critical information may be (intentionally or unintentionally) left out as the message is passed down from executives to operational staff.

📓 Example:

A customer success manager may unintentionally omit critical details about specific customer feedback or issues when updating the customer success team.

This omission could result in the team not being fully equipped to address customer concerns or provide accurate information, ultimately affecting the quality of support and service.

3. Over-simplification

‍Top-level executives and managers may oversimplify complex directives when sharing them with teams. This action may result in broad or vague instructions.

📓 Example:

The CEO may announce a strategic focus on enhancing customer experiences without providing details on specific actions.

Without clear directives, different teams might interpret the strategy in various ways, leading to inconsistent messaging about what customers can expect. This inconsistency can confuse the target audience and dilute the brand’s value proposition.

Bottom-up communication

Definition

Botton-up communication involves the flow of information happening from the operational levels of the organizational hierarchy (team members, contractors, freelancers) to the executive and managerial levels.

This type of communication is initiated by team members to inform decision-makers about different operational aspects.

Goals

• Get approvals
• Seek feedback
• Inform about task status or progress
• Validate strategic alignment
• Signal possible issues
• Provide ground-level insights
• Contribute to organizational learning
• And more
  

Miscommunication during bottom-up communication may involve issues such as:

1. Ignored messages

‍Unfortunately, in some cases, SaaS executives may ignore (willingly or unwillingly) crucial messages from the operational teams.

📓 Example:

After analyzing customer usage data and support tickets, the operational team identifies a significant usability issue with the software. However, the executive team disregarded these warnings, staying focused on developing new features.

Sales and marketing teams find it increasingly difficult to position the product effectively. Their efforts can be undermined by the public availability of negative feedback and customer complaints, making it harder to attract new users.

2. Misinterpreted urgency

‍A team may identify an issue requiring immediate attention, but the urgency of the matter is not adequately communicated or understood by decision-makers.

📓 Example:

A marketing coordinator notices a spike in email unsubscribes, linking it to increased email frequency. However, they fail to stress the urgency of the matter when reporting the issue to the marketing director. Consequently, the marketing lead overlooks it, focusing on other initiatives instead.

The high unsubscribe rate continues to climb, signaling a growing dissatisfaction among subscribers with the overwhelming frequency of emails. Subscribers feel bombarded with messages, leading to frustration and declining brand perception.

3. Lost ground-level insights

‍In some cases, teams at the operational level may derive crucial insights that are lost in the process instead of being communicated upwards.

📓 Example:

The customer success team uncovered key insights regarding user onboarding challenges yet failed to communicate them to the manager.

This prevented the team from improving the user onboarding instructions, ultimately hindering effective communication with new SaaS users and customers.

Lateral communication

Definition

Lateral communication involves the exchange of information between individuals or groups at the same level within a SaaS company. The information flow can happen between executives, managers from different departments, or team members across diverse teams.

Goals

• Share knowledge and skills
• Accomplish cross-departmental tasks
• Facilitate coordination and collaboration
• Reduce silos
• Strengthen overall team cohesion
• Ensure goal alignment between teams
• Support knowledge management
• And more
  

Miscommunication during lateral communication may involve issues such as:

1. Siloed communication

‍This happens when teams work independently without knowing how their work impacts other departments.

📓 Example:

The product team fails to communicate the launch of a new, powerful feature.

As a result, the marketing and sales teams aren’t able to leverage this new powerful feature in their communication with leads and prospects.

2. Priority misalignment

‍Lack of priority alignment within teams leads to disjoint actions and communication with target audiences.

📓 Example:

The marketing team initiates a teaser campaign for a new product launch, assuming the product will be ready by a certain date. However, there’s a priority misalignment, as the product team doesn’t rush with the development.

The result is a premature build-up of customer expectations without a product to deliver, causing frustration and potential loss of trust among the target audience.

3. Messaging inconsistencies

‍Messaging can become disjointed when teams don’t have a shared understanding of different projects.

📓 Example:

The marketing team develops a campaign based on an upcoming feature without ensuring the product team has finalized its development. Meanwhile, the sales team, relying on outdated product briefs, continues highlighting features that have been deprioritized or altered.

Messaging inconsistencies within SaaS teams will lead to confusing communication practices with target audiences. Prospects might feel misled if the features promoted by marketing are not the ones emphasized by sales or supported by customer service.

Diagonal communication

Definition

Diagonal communication enables the bypass of traditional hierarchical lines, involving the interactions between employees of different departments and levels of hierarchy.

Goals

• Reduce bureaucratic barriers
• Facilitate efficiency and speed up decision-making
• Ensure agility in problem-solving processes
• Share ideas and insights for quick improvements
• Facilitate collaboration between teams
• And more
  

Miscommunication during diagonal communication may involve issues such as:

1. Overlooking expertise

‍Senior professionals may disregard team members’ opinions or comments because of their perceived lack of experience.

📓 Example:

A junior product developer notices a misleading technical term and suggests a better alternative to the marketing director. Ignoring the advice, the director risks using incorrect terminology in their campaigns.

As a result, the use of incorrect terminology could not only confuse the target audience but also significantly undermine the brand’s credibility. It risks portraying the brand as less knowledgeable or attentive to detail than its audience expects, potentially eroding trust and authority in its field.

2. Bypassing quality check

‍Although bypassing bureaucracy to get something done may add agility to the process, in some cases, it can also mean a lack of quality control.

📓 Example:

The CTO of a SaaS company, who has a limited understanding of the brand voice but is aiming for speed and efficiency, works with a junior copywriter and a website developer to push a new page for publishing.

Without the rigorous vetting process typically involved in copywriting and the direct engagement of the marketing lead, there’s a higher risk of publishing inaccurate information that is not fully aligned with the brand’s voice and messaging standards.

3. Overstepping boundaries

‍Team members may overstep their functional boundaries, generating unwanted challenges.

📓 Example:

A junior sales rep negotiates contract terms with customers that include customizations or services not within the standard offering without consulting the relevant departments.

This scenario can lead to unmet expectations and conflicts during implementation or delivery. Customers may feel misled or frustrated if they are promised features or services that the company cannot deliver.

It’s worth noting that the issues each type of communication involves aren’t exclusive to that specific dynamic between team hierarchies. For example, priority misalignment or messaging inconsistencies may happen in top-down or diagonal communication.

Final note

Each interaction within SaaS teams, regardless of the department or hierarchical levels, can have unwanted results on messaging and communication with leads, prospects, and customers, creating frustration and eroding brand trust.