The prime goal of any business is to satisfy its customers and establish a long term relationship with them. Every business’s success is based on its customers. Satisfied and happy customers are considered to be the backbone of any business. There are two major reasons for that, one the satisfied customers become loyal and do repeated business and the second they help promoting the brand’s positive image which attracts more customers. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the markets are very competitive which also made customer more demanding. Furthermore the technology is heavily integrated in our society with almost everyone (99%) of the population have access to the internet and social media. This makes market more vibrant and digitally dominated. The market trends also keep changing all the times so does customer’s needs and demands. Customers expect excellent experience form their favorite brands. That is why businesses are diverting their attentions to the customer experience management solutions.
Now a day’s the customer satisfaction matters the most, there have been several studies and worldwide surveys which indicated that the customers are happy to pay extra if they are getting good experience. This makes customer experience even more important. The most common mistake businesses made is that they think only the customer service or customer care departments are responsible for the customer experience. However, in this modern world, that is not correct. The customer experience includes customer engagements, satisfaction, experience and communication at all touch points throughout the customer journey. The customer experience management framework is a bit more customer-centric or customer-first approach to build and nurture a mutually beneficial relationship with your customers. The customer experience management help businesses to understand customer experience more effectively and enable them to enhance customer experience to boost loyalty and generate more revenue.
What is the Difference between Customer Experience Management (CXM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Although the customer experience management and the customer relationship management both look fairly similar, but both are completely different. Despite there are several basic elements and similarities the primary objectives of CXM and CRM are totally different. The customer relationship management or CRM is used to learn what the customer look like to the business and customer relationship management or CXM/CEM is what a company looks like to its customers. The customer relationship management (CRM) is optimizing and improving internal processes by collecting data from manual, semi-automated or in few cases fully automated channels. However, the customer experience management (CXM/CEM) takes this to one step further and allow businesses to collect data in real-time and offer a much deeper understanding of the customer experience.
The customer experience management (CXM) focuses more on utilizing technologies and modern communication methods to enable a cross-channel engagement and managing customer experience across all touch points and in all departments. Which makes customer relationship management just a component of the customer experience management. Here are some most obvious differences between the customer experience management (CXM) and the customer relationship management (CRM):
| Customer Experience Management (CXM) | Customer Relationship Management (CRM) |
| Provides both qualitative and quantitative data insight across all touch points | Provides quantitative data insight across certain touch points |
| Prioritize customer experience and unify the data across the entire customer lifecycle | Traditional analytical approaches for impersonal statistical data and trends |
| Prioritize customer engagement to drive sales and revenue | Prioritize operational capabilities and improvements to maximize the profitability |
| Enable businesses to respond faster to the market trends and changes with intelligent real-time data analysis and its impact on customers | Identification of market trends and response time is much slower and it focuses heavily on customer service to improve customer happiness |
| It utilizes automation and modern technologies to focus on the entire organization and all its functions and it covers the entire customer journey which includes, sales, marketing, support, web, social media, in-branch experience, etc. | It mainly focuses only on the sales team while enabling the businesses to nurture their relationship with customers by leveraging the automation and modern technologies |
The customer experience management is a combination of technologies, processes, methods and strategies a business utilizes to monitor, organize and improve each and every interaction with its customer across all channels and throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Acquiring a new customer is very expensive, it could cost around 5 times to 25 times more than selling to an existing customer. That is why customer satisfaction is extremely important for growth and profitability. Studies have revealed that only a small portion of the loyal customers could be responsible for a huge portion of the entire revenue a business generates.
Why you Need a Customer Experience Management (CXM/CEM)?
The customer experience management (CXM/CEM) is not just another branding campaign, it is a very powerful data driven framework. Which help both businesses and customers equally and strengthen the relationship between business and the customers. The Dubai and in fact the entire UAE is a very well connected and competitive market. An effective customer experience management could provide your business the much needed advantage which will not only ensure customer satisfaction but also distinguish you from the rest of the market. It is a win-win scenario for both the customers and the businesses. The customer get an excellent personalized experience with satisfactory interactions and the business gets more leads, conversions and it also help businesses obtain a good reputation in the long term. The businesses can also acquire an excellent business intelligence data which provides them a much deeper understanding of customer persona and help them optimize well as per the customers’ needs.
Customer all over the world appreciate personalized experience. When their favorite brands offers them a personalized experience they feel more connected and valued which helps businesses gain their trust and drive customer loyalty. Here are the key benefits of the customer experience management (CXM/CEM):
Significant Improvement in Customer Retention:
Studies have shown that up to 5% increase in customer retention can increase your profit from 10% to 25%. That is because it is 5 to 15 times less expensive to sell to an existing customer than acquiring a new customer.
Happy Customers Need Less Attentions:
One of the biggest advantage of happy and satisfied customers is that they require less attentions. It requires less resources to serve them with satisfaction hence the service cost can be significantly reduced in the long term.
Improve Brand Reputation:
Happy and satisfied customers are more likely to promote your brand and products/services. According to several studies almost 80% of the customers make a purchase on the bases of their past experience or words of mouth.
Significant Reduction in Marketing Cost:
Loyal customers are tend to promote the brand with not only words of mouth but also on social media and digital platforms. Which can help improving your brand awareness and it can attract more customers without any marketing cost. Furthermore a good brand reputation also attracts more customers and reduce marketing cost and efforts too.
Improved Product Development:
Better understanding of the customer persona, their preferences and the market trends help businesses improve their existing products and provide excellent data for the product/service development process. Businesses can develop new and innovative products/services with features their customers and market is craving for which also boosts sales and conversions.
Great Competitive Advantage:
Improvements in all business functions such as operations, productions, supply chain, customer care, sales & marketing, etc. help boosting the overall performance of the business and also raise the quality of the work which can provide a greater competitive advantage and increase overall profitability.
Provides Huge Volumes of Crucial Data:
The business intelligence data gathered under CXM program can be a game changer for the businesses. It can accurately evaluate the impact of various customer engagement and customer satisfaction campaigns and it can also help in building future strategy as it provides a highly accurate statistical and analytical data which aids decision making processes as well.
Despite being so advantageous and useful the customer experience management (CXM) is still underrated in many regions and industry sectors. Studies have revealed that almost 70% of the businesses who are running an active customer experience management (CXM) campaign still don’t integrate the CXM data with their financial data. The customer experience management in itself is a very impactful framework however businesses can leverage its full potential only if it is linked with their financial data. Customer experience management (CXM) software integration with the financial data can boost its performance to several folds.
What is the Primary Goal of Customer Experience Management (CXM)?
The primary goal of the customer experience management (CXM/CEM) is to generate more revenue for the business. However, this can only be achieved by accomplishing the following most important tasks:
- Link CXM to Financial Data: It is crucial that the CXM data is linked with your financial data. As the primary goal is to boost the revenue so without linking it to your financial data you will be flying blind.
- Understand Your Customer Persona: The CXM collects data and provides a deeper understanding to the customer persona which helps businesses in setting up strategies and making plans.
- Identify the 20%: According to several studies and researches all around the world. The 20% of the happiest customers are usually responsible for the 80% of a business’s revenue. It is crucial to identify those 20% and allocate more resources to keep them happy and satisfied.
- Learn More about Your Brand’s Promoters: The brand promoters are only a small portion of your customers who are satisfied enough to promote your brand. Such customers are tend to be the best brand advocate and this data can be utilized to boost referral campaigns and acquire low-cost customers in a short period of time.
- Understand Customer Journey: The customer journey plays the key role in customer satisfaction. The CXM provides a highly accurate and comprehensive view of the customer journey and make customer journey mapping and improvement more simple and effective.
The primary goal of any customer experience management (CXM/CEM) program is to boost the revenue and growth of the business. A CXM helps businesses to invest their resources in the most profitable areas. It can maximize the ROI of almost each and every business function. If a business wants to transit from a sales-oriented to a more successful customer-oriented brand, then the CXM program is the only solution.
How to Create a Good Customer Experience Management Strategy?
Any customer experience management starts with a 360 degree view of the customers. The business should start collecting statistical and customer data and converge it to a single centralized information center. Usually the customer data is scattered across different business functions such as sales, marketing, customer service, and operations. The first step is to consolidate the data streams form all touch points. Here are the essential of creating a good customer experience management strategy:
- Combine and consolidate the data streams from all customer touch points into a single database.
- Build customer personas – understand their needs, expectations and problems and segment customers into groups based on demographics (age, gender), geographic (location), customer behaviors and purchase habits.
- Map the customer journey. The customer journey mapping help identifying customer touch points and their expected behavior on all those touch points. Customer journey mapping helps businesses to understand how customer will interact with their product and service and help the CX team to create a customer vision.
- Build a strong and impactful brand image or brand personality to strengthen the bond between customers and the business. The unique brand personality help businesses establishing a strong emotional connection with its clientele.
- Collect customer feedback in real-time and channel it to the CX team and other stakeholders to improve their visibility. It will help them understand the impact and effectiveness of the strategy.
Large businesses and enterprises can easily assemble a customer experience management team and appoint a CX manager who will be responsible for the creation and implementation of the customer experience management strategy. For SMEs and local businesses it is easier to appoint a single person to oversee the customer experience management tasks. Usually there is a chief customer experience office or CXO and a few customer experience managers (CEMs) and then the relevant teams. The data analysis and reports are generated by the CX team or executive and shared with the CXO and stakeholders and all relevant departments. This way the management can get a clear picture of the customer experience across all touch points which makes it easier for them to revise the strategy by making improvements to it and set a plan of action to further enhance the customer experience to obtain maximum customer retention.
How to Create an Effective Customer Experience Journey Map?
The customer experience management team or the manager is responsible for the customer experience at each touch point. That is why it is extremely important to map the ‘customer experience journey’ or ‘customer journey’ in order to effectively build and execute the customer experience management strategy. The customer experience journey map will identify all the touch points and let the team build a better strategy to optimize customer experience at all those touch points. Each touch point will reveal how the customer will interact and what customer behavior should be anticipated. Furthermore the team can improve the customer experience by optimizing those touch points as per the strategy. Here are the key touch points of the customer experience journey map:
1. Discovery Phase:
The discovery phase or reach phase is the phase where a customer or prospect discovers the business. Usually it could be from digital marketing or traditional marketing channels. These days the websites, social media and digital advertisements are the main players. However, customers also tend to consult with their friends, family and coworkers a lot.
2. Evaluation & Comparison:
In this phase the customers and prospects compare all available options in the market. They list down the competitor products/services and compare their different attributes, features, and costing, etc. Furthermore the customers also evaluate the business on the bases of its brand personality and they also try to find social proofs, recommendations, customer reviews and even references. If a brand succeed in gaining the trust of the customer at this stage the chances are they will get the businesses.
3. Decision (Purchase):
This is the phase where the customers finally came to a conclusion and make a purchase decision. Businesses consider this stage as a big win, however, it is just the beginning of the customer loyalty, retention and relationship building. Offering a flawless purchase experience is absolutely essential. Furthermore the business can capture transactional feedback at this stage which can be very useful later.
4. Support:
After sale support and services are considered to be the backbone of any loyalty program. It is crucial for the business to offer a great customer experience at this stage and make offering which can strengthen their relationship. If a customer got dissatisfied at this stage they will eventually leave the business and move on with a competitor.
These are just the minimum touch points of the customer journey. However, in the modern digital landscape business in Dubai and all around the UAE use several communication channels and offer several different types of digital and in-office/on-store interactions. Considering them all in the customer journey map is crucial to improve the accuracy and efficacy of the customer experience management (CXM/CEM) system. One of the most important component of the customer experience journey mapping is the customer persona. It is extremely important to segment your customer base into several groups and then it is easier to plug-in the typical persona into the customer experience journey map to enhance the customer experience at each touch point.
What are the Best Customer Experience Management Techniques?
Managing the customer experience throughout the entire customer journey is not an easy task. It requires a great strategy and excellent work to capture customers’ attention and keep them loyal. However, here are a few modern customer experience management techniques which can help businesses to achieve the desired goals and results of the program:
- Content Creation: The customer experience management team must have to understand that at each touch point and stage of the customer journey they will have to prove value to the customers. That means for each relevant stage or touch point the business must have to create excellent customer-facing content. The ideal way is to offer personalized content such as emails, messages, web content, social media posts and online communication. The social media, websites, mobile apps, and other digital channel are an excellent solution to increase customer engagement by offering them personalized and most relevant content.
- Evaluate All Touch Points: It is extremely important for a customer experience management team to continuously evaluate each and every customer touch point. The continuous evaluation can provide valuable business intelligence data which can tell what are the most popular touch points, at which stage the customers are making purchase decision and at which stage the customer are leaving for a competitor. This will help identify the problems which can be rectified to boost customer engagement and to improve their experience.
- Collect VOC Data: The VOC or voice of the customer is the customer feedback data which should be collected on all customer experience journey phases. Collecting the customer feedback data is not enough the customer experience management team or manager should also be able to analyze the data to understand the customers’ sentiments. The emotional attachment with a brand is one of the key factor of customer loyalty and if effectively used it can be a game changer.
- Great Customer Loyalty Program: The customer who keeps a brand dear also wants the brand to acknowledge their loyalty. The customer who do repeated business with a brand expect some kind of reward or acknowledgement from the brand. A well-designed customer loyalty program can not only make your customer happy but it could also drive upselling and increase revenue.
The customer experience management team or the manager must continuously analyze the customer data. This will help them effectively improve their strategies and yield better results. Another great advantage of continuous monitoring and analysis is that it provides brands adequate time to make changes and do course corrections. Which can prevent more customers from leaving and reduce your churn rate and it will also help to prevent such happenings in future.
What is a Customer Experience Management (CXM) Software?
The customer experience management (CXM/CEM) is a very challenging task. The sheer volume of the data alone could be a great challenge. Furthermore analyzing the data, categorizing it and generating reports poses additional challenges down the road. That is why the customer experience management requires an appropriate technology to support it. For that the customer experience management software are used. The customer experience management (CXM) software is a tool that collects data from each customer touch point and provides in-built analytical tools to generate actionable reports. These software are exclusively designed to support customer experience management tasks. Hence the interfaces are very simple and several operations are fully automated which makes the CXM software’s operation completely seamless. All good customer experience management (CXM) software comes with in-built CRM (customer relationship management) component/module along with marketing automation components and mostly an omnichannel customer support service module to provide support team with several convenient communication channels.
Here are the key features of a good customer experience management software:
- Personalization Engine (to enable personalized communication)
- Digitalization and Automation Tools
- Customer Service Center/Call Center Tools
- Customer Feedback Collection or VOC Tools
- Knowledge Base Management Tools
- Emotions or Sentiment Analysis Tools
- Statistical and User Data Collection Tools
- Customized Reporting Tools
- Alerts and Notification Center
- Flexible Third-Party System Integration Tools
- Support for Cloud, Online Hosting and In-Premises Data Centers
- Simple and Cost-efficient Scalability Features
These are some of the key components of the customer experience management (CXM) software. There are several off-the-shelf software and tools that can be utilized however in terms of user experience and data integration most businesses uses customized customer experience management software. The customized customer experience management software are tailor-made solutions which are exclusively designed as per the needs of the business and provide great value in terms of user experience. Furthermore the customized customer experience management software are also very cost efficient as they are very flexible towards integration and doesn’t require business to made any major change in its current business processes. The customized solution is far superior then commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) customer experience management software available in Dubai, UAE. A customized software development company in Dubai, UAE such as RSI Concepts can offer a-to-z solution for your customer experience management software needs.
Conclusion
Customer experience management has become absolute necessity these days. In the very competitive market businesses can utilize customer experience management tools and framework to boost their revenue and to build a long lasting successful track for their journey. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE businesses usually mistaken customer experience management as customer relationship management however, it is important to understand that the customer relationship management is merely a component of the customer experience management framework. The customer experience management is a highly data drive framework which is a combination of software, data collection processing tools, strategies and processes. The primary goal of the customer experience management is to generate more revenue for a business by improving customer experience at all touch points and at all stages of customer experience journey. The customer experience management covers all business functions and all touch points, which help collecting a huge volumes of data in real-time which can make businesses more robust and agile.
There are several commercial off-the-shelf customer experience management software however, the customized customer experience management software is far superior to that. RSI Concepts is a leading customized software development company in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to help you with your customer experience management software needs, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.
Check out this: Guide to Custom Software Development