Placing the customer at the heart of your business is easier said than done. If you are to tap the true sentiments of your customers and evoke them to come back, you can’t do away with a great product and customer service alone. It requires effort from every branch of the business. It requires attention to every interaction throughout the customer journey. 

This is where Customer Experience Management (CXM) comes in. 

Any customer-centric organization should be equipped with a comprehensive and well-planned CXM program to understand their client needs better and cater to them efficiently. If you are not familiar with the concept or need to learn more, keep reading!

What is Customer Experience Management (CXM)?

Customer Experience Management (CXM) is the strategic process of identifying, analyzing, and fine-tuning customer interactions that arise from both physical and digital touchpoints to enhance customer experience. 

What companies intend to achieve through CXM management is to understand the customer-brand relationship from the perception of the customer and fix the existing gap between potential and actual customer experience.

As customer interactions happen through a multitude of touchpoints, tackling their complexity requires an effective CXM software program. Typically, CXM software is responsible for collecting, tracking, managing, organizing, and analyzing customer interactions to help brands handle CXM seamlessly and gain useful insights. In addition, CXM can also integrate other platforms that manage customer feedback, customer journeys, and other similar segments to supplement its activities. 

Why CXM is Important?

Here’s why CXM is essential for your organization.

1) It Improves Customer Loyalty and Retention

Today, customers are on the hunt for brands that provide personalized experiences to appeal to their preferences. But, how do you know what each customer is looking for?

Through the wealth of data gathered through the CXM process, brands can gain a comprehensive understanding of actual customer expectations as opposed to what’s perceived by the brand. Once you get a good grasp of what spurs interest and what deters engagement, it becomes easier to provide a tailor-made experience. 

If useful customer-related information is shared across the departments, everything from marketing materials, sales strategies, to customer support can be personalized to suit each client.

This makes the brand more intuitive. If you can provide content that speaks of a customer’s interest, provide suggestions of products they are actually interested in, and acknowledge their importance through loyalty schemes and rewards, you have won them.

Customers are more likely to come back, increasing their retention rate and Customer Lifetime Value. Brands that treat each customer as if they are the best customer become brands that remain undefeated in the market.  

2) Supports Overall Growth

If customers are the lifeblood of any business, their satisfaction is necessary for growth. Implementing CXM and integrating it as one of the major processes of your business can bring many advantages. 

When enterprises focus on improving CX through CXM, they also focus on aspects such as improving employee engagement and eliminating silos within the organization.

When employees are educated, motivated, and incentivized, they will strive to create happy customers. Similarly, when all the departments and units in the business are integrated to share information, every employee will be updated about customer information. So, customers don’t have to go through the hassle of explaining their matters from the beginning. 

Also, as you begin to gain a thorough understanding of customer behavior, it becomes easier to alter your business models to align with customers’ needs. Eventually, these positive changes within the organization will increase sales and drive growth. 

3) Increased Brand Visibility 

As brands begin to pay more attention to CXM and prioritize customer’s needs above anything else, they will be rewarded with increased referrals. Loyal and satisfied customers will recommend the products to people they know and spread the word through social media platforms. According to a study, 74% of customers identify word of mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decisions and for businesses, it can result in 5x more sales. Eventually, the brand will gain greater visibility with increased awareness. 

CXM help businesses differentiate their service from their competitors through exceptional customer experience. Customers prefer brands that already know what they want even before they step into the store. So, paying more attention to CXM can help you widen your client base. 

Takeaway

In the present situation, where customer expectations have changed dramatically, it is important to analyze evolving customer behavior through multiple interactions and adopt the best strategies to retain your clientele. So, if you haven’t been paying attention to CXM, now is the time to do it. 

FREE eBook: The ROI of Customer Experience

Get your free eBook The ROI of CX