Changes to Gartner's CXM Definition and what it means

I recently saw an article written by Augie Ray , who is the Vice President, Analyst and Gartner Fellow Covering Customer Experience at Gartner research, about an update to their definition of Customer Experience Management (CXM). The change was subtle, but important. The previous definition was about designing experiences and reacting to customers, whereas the new definition added a very important element: Understanding.  To quote my favorite Steven Covey’ism “Seek first to understand, then be understood.”  The definition goes on to say that CXM needs to put understanding at the heart of CXM, then use that understanding to drive cross functional efforts and a customer centric culture to improve customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy. In other words, CXM is now about listening to and understanding your customers so you can serve them in a customer centric way across the organization so customers will keep coming back again and again. 

One of the things that’s so interesting about this new definition is that it’s at the heart of what makes social media such an interesting space. It’s really the only place you can have conversations with customers and prospects in near real time, and understand what your customers are saying. From public messages on social networks to private messages in channels such as Facebook messenger, this one of the best places to really get to know and understand your customers, and support them throughout the customer journey. Given what’s happened in the pandemic, so many businesses have shifted to a digital first and really, social first communications strategy. I’ve seen this play out in the biggest brands at Hootsuite and in my local community restaurants and businesses.  Part of what’s helped our local shops survive is that they kept talking to us, their customers, over social and the community leaned in to support them and help shape how they operated. The same has held true for the larger brands. 

To me, this shift in definition tracks to what we see in the broader market. Businesses need to get back to being connected to their customers, build empathy for them and respond to them with that empathy. In a world where the pandemic has left us all too isolated and feeling disconnected, the path forward for CXM is rooted in customer understanding and experiences that are grounded in that understanding.