After detailing the foundations of this subject in the article customer relationship management, in this article we will look into customer experience management, and how this evolution translates into a new level of knowledge about the business and it’s customers, in order to translate this knowledge into added value for organizations.
What is customer experience management
The general definition of customer experience management, known by the acronyms CEM ou CXM, is the collection of processes that an organization uses to organize, track and follow all interactions between a customer and the business throughout the customer lifecycle. These collections of processes, in turn, aim to achieve or exceed customer expectations, in order to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
What is the importance of customer experience management
In a competitive global market, where the consumers have an increasing ability to choose between products and services, organizations need to innovate to stand out from the competition. One of the currently most popular ways to stand out, is through the optimization of all contact points between the business and the customer, ensuring an optimal experience from the first contact to its conclusion.
This optimal experience is not only intended to build customer loyalty, but also to transform the customer into an advocate for the product, brand or service, influencing in a positive way people or entities around them.
What steps to implement a CXM strategy
Just like it’s predecessor, CXM is not a technological solution or a category of softwares, but a business strategy that consists on a set of processes, based on qualified and standardized customer data, activated by information technologies, therefore the steps to be taken for a successful implementation involve defining the strategy, aligning it with business processes and subsequently identifying the technologies that will ensure the acquisition and qualification of key information.
Above all, the strategy foundations must be based on the added value intended for the organization’s processes.
Strategic framework
Excellence yes, but excellence in what sense? Easier, faster, better looking, better? The characteristics of an optimal customer experience will vary depending on the customer’s expectations, together with the specifics of each product, service or business area, so the first question to consider is: “given the characteristics of the business, what is the direction that best meets customer expectations and strategy objectives”.
In addition to defining a path, one of the crucial goals of this stage is to avoid a “better in every way” approach, something that, in addition to being utopian, will certainly be fruitless given its overly generic scope.
Customer Journeys
The second step to take involves the mapping of all customer journeys, which means identifying all interaction points between a customer and your business throughout the customer lifecycle.
What are the entry points into your business? What actions are taken from consideration to purchase? And what steps are made after closing the deal?
Every action involving customer interaction must be identified, monitored and optimized, in order to provide an experience that stands out in a positive way, enhancing the loyalty and promotion of your business through your customers and improving the business profitability in return.
This step will allow to identify which business processes are involved in the different customer journeys and where/how they interact with the journeys, which allow to to transition into the technological aspects of the strategy.
Technological framework
With the strategy and mappings ensured, it’s now possible to identify the technological solutions that allow to complement the previous points, in order to monitor and optimize the different stages of the customer journey.
As mentioned before, there’s not a “one size fits all” solution, since the business characteristics in conjunction with customer’s expectations and the chosen strategy will define which solutions are a best fit.
In a general way, the technological approach must cover the following areas, at the core of the customer facing processes:
- The promotion of the business, brand and / or products on the defined channels
- Content Marketing and digital channels management
- Communication automation at the several levels of the business lifecycle
- Monitoring and optimization of commercial activities such as events, outbound calling or 1-to-1 meetings
- Customer service management
- And finally as an aggregation point of all previous bullets, customer data management and KPI generation
Hopefully this article will provide a succinct but detailed look at customer experience management and the main steps for its implementation. As always, If you have any questions or want more information about these subjects, reach us through the available channels.