The relationship between sales and marketing is important in any organization. The aptly named Sales and Marketing Valentine’s Day Report from conversational artificial intelligence (AI) providers Conversica draws results from a survey of more than 1,000 sales and marketing professionals and finds that 87 percent and 93 percent of them, respectively, describe their relationship as “very important.”

Drilling deeper, the survey’s results show some differences between the two groups. Marketing seems more optimistic about their relationship—38 percent of marketing respondents say there is perfect synergy between the two, versus 27 percent of sales, and 47 percent of marketing describe sales as their “comrade in arms,” compared to 35 percent of sales. Furthermore, 68 percent of sales said the relationship is good but could be better, three percent describe it as tense but workable and two percent say it is dysfunctional.

However, both groups list the fact that marketing is more forward-looking, while noting that tension is the greatest issue between them—58 percent of sales respondents and 33 percent of marketing respondents gave this answer.