Customer Experience Management (CEM)

For companies in any industry today, success is driven by the ability to attain and retain customers who share a loyal connection with them. While keeping customers satisfied is essential, it is important to remember that it is only a piece to the puzzle. When it comes to maintaining and gaining customers, the focus needs to be on the entire experience.

The following interview was between Stefania Viscusi and Randy Saunders, Marketing Director, Customer Experience Management products, Cincom Systems about CEM. Cincom Systems delivers software and services to simplify complex business processes and help clients outperform their competition.

SV: Can you provide a brief description of Customer Experience Management?

RS: There are many definitions out there, a good way to look at it is as a process or framework for building an organization’s capability to deliver a distinctive customer experience that defines the brand and drives profitable growth.

SV: Why is CEM so important to success? Does it provide measurable returns?

RS: We are dealing with a changing economy right now. We have moved from a product economy to a service economy, and now we’re moving into an "experience" economy-- which adds a level of emotion that the product or service economies did not have.

Many recent brands have been successful by really focusing on the customer experience. So, if you do it right, and you design an experience with your products and services correctly, you generate a lot higher loyalty and advocates for your products-- which is proven to lead to increased company growth and profitability.

SV: Can successful CEM improve customer loyalty, and why is customer loyalty so critical?

RS: Fred Reichheld, a top speaker on management right now, is proving that advocacy leads to growth and increased loyalty.

In his book, "The Ultimate Question," released earlier this year, he proves that exceptional customer experience creates loyalty and that a 5 percent increase in customer loyalty increases lifetime profits by as much as 95 percent. He also proves that companies who are, what he calls, NPS (net promoter score) or customer advocacy leaders, outgrow their competitors by an average of 2.5 times. So, you can look at this one indicator to find out how many advocates you have for your product -- meaning, how likely are customers to recommend your product or service to a colleague. The more advocates you have, the faster your company grows and the more profitable you are. The reason for this is that the advocates drive the growth of your company in 4 areas:

1- They tend to repurchase.

2- They buy additional product lines from you.

3- Referrals-- they tell others about you and give important word-of-mouth marketing.

4- They provide constructive feedback and are always willing to fill out surveys or responses for the company, which helps to better a product.

SV: What information does CEM collect to draw intelligent conclusions from?

RS: The CEM process audits the most profitable customers to understand what things they really value and what really drives their loyalty. With that collected information, a better customer experience is designed through improvements that ultimately lead to more and more advocates.

SV: Can CEM reduce customer churn? How so?

RS: There was an interesting study in Shaun Smith's book where he shows that 80 percent of all customers who switch suppliers express satisfaction with their previous supplier. This is because customer satisfaction just isn’t enough anymore. Again, as we move into that experience economy, it's more about the emotion and getting to an advocacy level. If not, those who are satisfied, or who may seem loyal because they're repurchasing, will switch to another supplier easily if they haven’t reached an advocacy level for your offering.

One of the things we talk about is designing a customer experience that is consistent, intentional, differentiated and valuable to the customer. If you do that right, you can create more advocates from your customers.

SV: Does CEM improve decision-making and help minimize risk?

RS: Yes. It helps measure the key drivers that your most profitable customers really value. If you understand what they really value, and can deliver on those things, you are able to attract more customers just like them.

SV: How can CEM benefit the call center?

RS: Your brand is on trial every time a customer contacts your contact center-- every contact with the center is a test of the organization as a whole. No matter how much money you put into marketing and developing great products, if the call center is the weak link in that total customer experience, then a negative encounter with your contact center, could in fact drive a customer away. Alternatively, a really great experience, where an agent really cared and helped, is also remembered.

A contact center’s ability to respond to a customer's problem or request has a very high influence on the overall experience with that company, possibly much more than the product itself.

Source: http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/hosted-contact-center/articles/4515-understanding-customer-experience-management-talk-with-cincoms-randy.htm