After all, what is CEM?

Customer experience management (CEM or CXM) is the collection of processes a company uses to track, oversee and organize every interaction between a customer and the organization throughout the CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE. The goal of CEM is to optimize interactions from the customer's perspective and foster customer loyalty. To manage the customer experience, a company needs to create a strategy that encompasses all customer interactions.

CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE?

In customer relationship management (CRM), customer life cycle is a term used to describe the progression of steps a customer goes through when considering, purchasing, using, and maintaining loyalty to a product or service. Marketing analysts Jim Sterne and Matt Cutler have developed a matrix that breaks the customer life cycle into five distinct steps: reach, acquisition, conversion, retention, and loyalty. In layman's terms, this means getting a potential customer's attention, teaching them what you have to offer, turning them into a paying customer, and then keeping them as a loyal customer whose satisfaction with the product or service urges other customers to join the cycle. The customer life cycle is often depicted by an ellipse, representing the fact that customer retention truly is a cycle and the goal of effective CRM is to get the customer to move through the cycle again and again.

HOW, WHY AND ARE WE PREPARED?

CEM requires companies have a 360-degree view of customers, with integrated, up-to-date data on their accounts. Increasingly, customer experiences include interactions through traditional channels, such as website purchases, phone calls and live chat as well as social media, text and other emerging communication mediums. With new communication channels and touch points comes greater complexity.

There is more data to process from more sources, and this data needs to be integrated with existing customer account data. The ability to combine customer relationship management (CRM) system data with financials, ERP and inventory management, as well as real-time data on social platforms, can be challenging.

CRM platforms from vendors, such as Salesforce, Microsoft, SAP and Oracle, attempt to bridge the gaps between communication channels and make database integration easier. These providers are working on integrating sales, marketing and service data as well, so customer information doesn't reside in data silos. 

TECHNOLOGY IS NECESSARY?

Companies are also enlisting business intelligence and customer data analytics to learn more about how to market and sell to customers in a more personalized, one-to-one fashion. Personalized strategies include new technologies, such as mobile marketing, location-based services and beacons, which help companies identify where customers are and market to them in real time. In some cases, the data can help companies give consumers pointed information that may or may not be related to a discrete purchase. For example, a stadium might use location-based services to inform consumers about which concession stand is proximal and less busy.

Companies also use emerging technologies such as emotional analytics to gauge whether customers benefit from their interactions with companies. Emotional analytics software can help analyze the success of a variety of operations that are related -- but potentially tangential to -- customer service, such as inventory management or supply chain management.

Knowledge management systems are also important tools in an effort to provide seamless customer service. Agents can use these tools to look up product information and customer interaction with previous products. Agents can also combine this information with customer data and inventory information to provide customers with information on their account, product education and inventory.

At a Burger King in Amesbury, Mass, one of Coca-Cola’s newest creations sits next to the pick-up counter. The touchscreen soda fountain glows red and white in the dim lighting, and colorful buttons beckon customers to try out the machine.

Coca-Cola Freestyle, introduced in 2009, provides a new way for people to interact with the Coke brand and delivers individual control for each user. It’s yet another example of technology shaping customer experience management (CEM). The touchscreen machines offer more than 100 drink combinations to customers, who can stick with Coke or craft their own drink recipes—with a dozen fruit flavors and 21 base syrups to choose from, including Coke Zero, Powerade, Sprite and Dasani. The machines have been gradually deployed over the past three years in fast food restaurants, movie theaters and convenience stores across the United States and Canada. Coke’s effort to integrate technology and customer experience exemplifies how companies are shifting their strategies toward a customer-centric model, according to Denis Pombriant, founder of Beagle Research in Stoughton, Mass.

CEM has emerged as a critical strategy for businesses today. A March'06 report by Harris Interactive shows that 86% of consumers quit doing business with a company because of a bad experience—up from 59% four years ago.

In turn, companies have focused more attention on innovative customer experience models, especially those that combine new technology with the ability to measure consumer interaction and receive feedback.

Source: Techtarget.com