What is Customer Experience Management (CXM)?
Customer experience management
In the modern digital marketplace, effective Customer Experience Management can be the difference between a business that thrives and a business that cannot keep up with the competition.
But what is Customer Experience Management, and why does it matter? Here, we look at why Consumer Experience Management is vital to digital operations and how it can benefit your business.
Defining customer experience
Over the past few years, Customer Experience (CX) has become an increasingly important and influential concept for businesses of all shapes and sizes. However, the term is often misused and misinterpreted. As a result, it’s a good idea to start with a clear working definition.
CX is best described as the impression or perception a customer has of your business and brand based on their experience interacting with it. This means it covers all aspects of the customer journey, including interactions with your business's people, products, and digital touchpoints.
As you can see, CX is quite an expansive concept. A customer doesn't even have to make a purchase for it to influence CX, as the term incorporates all aspects of the relationship between a customer and a business. In fact, those customers who don't make a purchase often tell you more about your business than those who do, and that can significantly affect CX.
What is customer experience management?
If CX is the impression a customer has of your business, it makes sense that Customer Experience Management (CXM) is the group of processes, tools and techniques used to understand that impression and improve the way a customer perceives your business.
In more practical terms, CXM is the management of all customer interactions - whether they're in store, over the phone or online - to offer customers a superior experience. In today's digital marketplace, that can mean offering more personalized experiences, implementing an omnichannel strategy or introducing 24/7 customer service technologies.
Businesses achieve CX Management goals by using various digital tools. Chief amongst these are data analysis, personalization, content delivery and automation technologies.
Distinguishing between CXM, CRM and customer service
It’s easy to confuse CX Management with several other closely related concepts, including Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Customer Service. However, there are clear distinctions:
CXM vs CRM
CRM deals with what a company knows about customers. On the other hand, CXM is concerned with what customers think about a business. Similarly, CRM often focuses on the ways a business can reach out to customers to increase revenue, while CX Management looks at the ways customers reach out to your business.
CXM vs Customer Service
While CX Management is concerned with every aspect of the customer journey, customer service is a single moment within the customer journey.
Why is CXM so important?
Client Experience Management is vital to modern businesses because it is directly connected to your profit margin and business growth. To put it simply, customers prefer to buy from companies they like and are easy to interact with. Recent studies have shown that 52% of customers will go out of their way to buy from brands they're loyal to.
Breaking down this idea further, CXM matters because CX is linked to:
Brand loyalty
As we’ve already shown, customers are more likely to purchase from those businesses they’re loyal to.
Customer retention
Superior CX makes it easier to retain customers. Attracting a new customer can be five times as expensive as keeping an existing customer, so it makes sense to prioritize customer retention and limit customer churn.
Lifetime value
The better the CX, the greater a customer’s lifetime value to a business.
The challenges inherent in modern Customer Experience Management
When implementing CXM technologies and techniques, businesses may face several challenges. With guidance and support, these can often be quickly overcome. They include:
Absence of omnichannel support
Customers demand omnichannel support. They want to use their preferred channel when interacting with a business and need to switch between channels seamlessly. If your business doesn't allow this, you're offering a suboptimal CX that will push customers away.
Inadequate data
Understanding customers is dependent on the analysis of extensive amounts of data. If you don’t understand your customers, you can’t attempt to improve their perception of your business. Your data should include both qualitative survey research and quantitative data.
Lack of communication
CXM is an organization-wide process that involves every team and all employees. Consequently, it is hampered by a lack of communication and organizational silos that prevent the free flow of information.
Getting customer experience management right with Ibexa
What does good CXM look like, and how can you get it right? First, all effective CXM efforts are built on solid foundations - a comprehensive Customer Experience Management platform. Ibexa DXP is one such platform. A modular system that can grow and evolve alongside your company, Ibexa DXP enables you to introduce digital tools and technologies quickly and easily as and when you need them, rather than all at once.
Each of the platform’s core components meets a distinct business need. Ibexa DXP provides your organization with the means to develop and distribute engaging content across all channels. Ibexa Personalization makes segmenting and targeting customers and valuable demographics easier than ever. At the same time, Ibexa DXP helps you create new website pages, break down internal data silos and manage experiences across a wide range of touchpoints.
With Ibexa DXP we can reach our potential customers and personalize their online experience to match their interests in Andorra.
Well-designed Client Experience Management software is essential to understand customers better and improve their perception of your business. However, there are other factors to focus on, too. We'd recommend considering the three following steps for enhanced CXM:
1. Put the customer first
It may be a cliché, but the customer is always right. Ask yourself what your customers want and whether you’re giving it to them. If you’re not, make changes.
2. Personalize customer interactions
Customers want to be recognized as individuals and demand some level of personalization. Content that is not tailored to their specific needs, likes and dislikes will infuriate rather than inspire.
3. Concentrate on breaking down silos
Employees, customers and data need to be able to freely circulate within a business if it’s to offer a modern customer experience. That means removing barriers to circulation. Whether it’s different parts of your organization retrieving customer data from a central CRM or enabling customers to start an inquiry on one channel and finish it on another, creating an omnichannel system is a fantastic first step towards effective CXM.
Why Ibexa is your ideal choice
Ibexa is ideal if you want to begin transforming your business with Customer Experience Management but don't want to commit to a large initial expenditure. Based on a modular design, Ibexa DXP ensures that you can add new capabilities when you need to. This also implies that you can integrate Ibexa Content, Ibexa Experience and Ibexa Commerce with your existing systems and harness the advantages of having an interconnected digital ecosystem.
