How Customer Experience Management Drives Revenue

What is Customer Experience Management (CXM or CEM)?

Customer Experience Management is abbreviated as CXM or CEM. The customer experience principle is to provide a personalized path and experience based on the user’s expectations and needs. Each sales channel must be capable of aggregating useful information and the user’s needs in order to offer him a suitable product or service. Interactions with the user must thus be optimized in order to provide them with a pleasant, dynamic, and practical experience. Additional products, for example, may be offered to him based on his previous purchases.

Simply put, it is the process that companies employ to monitor, supervise, and facilitate every interaction between a customer and the organization throughout the customer lifecycle.

What’s the difference between Customer Relationship Management (CRM)?

The acronym CRM or Customer Relationship Management, can define both the management of the customer relationship as a whole, but also a CRM software used to optimize this customer and prospect relationship. The CRM tool makes it possible in particular to store and analyze information from prospects and customers and to intelligently trace commercial activity. The CXM is more a process than a software itself. The CXM is an evolution of the logic of the CRM: it allows to put at the heart of its activity and in a more powerful way, the customer. We no longer seek only to know the customer, but also to satisfy him.

The CXM approach crosses the data with other variables and more channels. The CXM can thus integrate the notion of Social CRM: it then analyzes the data via social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), physical points of sale, the website and mobile. CXM includes the history of interactions with each customer on each channel. The goal is to have a 360° view of the customer or prospect with data updated in real-time.

The Customer Experience Management (CXM) approach is based on a customer-centric vision offering a more personalized and satisfying customer journey than the CRM approach alone.

Why you should care about Customer Experience Management?

Consumers are changing, their experiences too. Here is why everyone should focus on Customer Experience Manage:

• Consumption patterns have changed, resulting in higher customer expectations: Omni-channel solutions increase a prospect’s journey to purchase. Digital channels have increased in recent years: e-commerce sites, social media, emailing, advertising, mobile applications, etc. Customers are more and more difficult and demanding. They want a personalized and unconstrained offer. They no longer want to wait and waste time but want to quickly access the information they want. Everything must be instantaneous, whatever the channel.

• Retaining a customer costs far less than acquiring a new one: Studies have shown that a 5% increase in customer retention can result in a up to 25% increase in profit. This can be explained by the fact that companies can save money on acquisition costs, and satisfied customers tend to come back to spend more and increase their overall Life-Time Value (LTV).

• Listening to customers is always the key to improvement: Customers, via surveys and feedback, can provide incredibly useful information on their journey, therefore improving the next customer’s experience.

• Loyal customers are a company’s best influencers: Customer approval is often more influential in purchasing decisions than advertising or marketing efforts.

• Maintain a competitive edge: Customers usually compare brands and offerings before making a decision. Understanding why they chose a brand over another one can help a company position itself favorably against a rival.

How To Generate Revenue Through Customer Experience Management

The CXM approach is based on a customer-centric vision aimed at offering a more personalized and satisfying customer journey.

• Understand your customers: knowing who your customers are, what they want and why is the first step to creating a successful customer experience. Creating customer profiles and segments will help design their own journeys. Customer journey maps can frequently assist CX teams in increasing long-term customer retention.

• Know your products or services: Customer journey map in hand, CX leaders can identify and predict how customers will engage with a product or service.

• Personalize each channel: different customers use different channels to reach your business and their expectations must be met the same way. Whichever channel it is, digital or physical, customers need to have a seamless interaction with your company. This can be a major lever of differentiation from competitors.

• Get feedback: measuring real-time customer satisfaction is the best way to correct course sooner rather than later.

Consumers have changed. Their habits and expectations have too. Customer Experience Management has a direct correlation to brand recognition and sales. Having a strong CXM strategy in place and meeting your customers with an experience satisfying their highest expectations can be a huge factor in both customer acquisition and retention.