Customer experience management (CEM or CXM) is the process in which a company tracks and analyzes the different interactions and touchpoints a customer shares with a brand throughout the customer journey. The data gathered is meant to help inform the design of future experiences in hopes of better meeting individual customer needs.
As consumers become more accustomed to top shelf experiences like those of Uber and Netflix, it’s crucial for brands to know and understand their customers in order to deliver the superior, personalized experiences necessary to match their expectations.
How do I get started with customer experience management?
Until recently, challenges in consolidating data from disparate systems has led to data fragmentation, meaning marketers have been unable to effectively participate in customer experience management. But thankfully, with the evolution of unified platforms that can onboard data from a variety of sources, the ability to activate data and deliver contextually relevant interactions has become possible.
To get started, data must be consolidated across all channels, screens, and experiences into a single view of the customer. This can be done by partnering with the right technology solution. Doing so allows customer experience management, as well as omni-channel retailing, possible for businesses looking to make the largest impact on their bottom line revenue.
Once you have one point of reference for all of your customer data, you can begin to better understand who your customer is and how to tailor relevant experiences to them at a faster rate of exchange.
For example, using CRM data to target users based on historical purchases. Layered on top of that, marketers can now leverage onsite behavior and previously signaled preferences from a variety of channels to create more personalized, individual experiences.
What are some recent trends and customer experience statistics?
When Bain & Company asked organizations to rate the quality of their customer experience, 80% said they believe they are delivering a superior experience. Though, only 8% of customers communicated they are actually receiving a great customer experience.
That’s a big discrepancy.
Even more troublesome, a 2016 Customer Experience Rating study from The Temkin Group found a severe decline in customer experience, marking the percentage of good and excellent companies executing on CXM dropped from 37% in 2015 to only 18% in 2016 – it’s lowest rating since 2011.
So, what can an organization do to create a great customer experience?
There are an infinite amount of strategies a marketer can implement to help enhance the customer experience and relationship. At the root of it, brands should be leveraging their unified customer profiles to:
- Deliver personalized interactions
- Provide the right info to the right person, at the right place, at the right time
- Close the feedback loop to identify possible gaps in service
- Address any potential future pain points before they emerge
