Customer Experience Management
Successful businesses place the customer experience above all else. Satisfied customers lead to increased sales, better reviews online, and a healthy bottom line. So, how do you ensure customers are pleased with your business? The answer: positive customer experience starts with superior customer experience management.
Defining the Customer Experience
Customer experience (CX) is the experience customers have with your business throughout the entire process, from first contact to purchasing to becoming a brand ambassador. It is also a key aspect of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), the practices and strategies used to manage and study customer interactions and data throughout their involvement with your business. Customer experience is critical because those with a positive outlook of your business often become repeat, loyal customers.
A global CX study by Oracle found that 74% of high-ranking executives felt customer experience impacted the willingness of a customer to be a brand ambassador. In short, if your business wants customers to be loyal, you must invest in some form of customer experience management.
Importance of Customer Experience
Customer experience is essential in creating loyal customers and increasing revenue. A business’s best marketing is a form money can’t directly buy – positive word of mouth. Loyal brand ambassadors who promote your business, advocate for your product, and vouch for your service can easily be created through proper customer experience management. These customers directly impact the success of your business and lead to an influx of new and returning customers.
The concept of customer experience and its management is so critical to a business it could be the difference between life and death in today’s ultra-competitive global industries. There is measurable value in effectively managing the customer experience, including:
- Strengthened customer brand preference through unique experiences
- Improved customer loyalty and creation of brand ambassadors through these unique, memorable experiences
- Increased revenue with additional sales from new and returning customers
- Decreased costs by reducing customer churn
Customer Experience Management
Customer experience management (CEM or CXM) is the processes or actions a business takes to record, monitor, and organize customer interactions throughout their entire involvement. Gartner, a technological research and consulting firm, defines CXM as “the practice of designing and reacting to customer interactions to meet or exceed customer expectations and, thus, increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy.”
The importance of customer experience management cannot be overstated. Those that successfully manage their customer interactions and experience enjoy a variety of benefits, including:
- Reduced marketing expenses – customer retention is cheaper than customer acquisition
- Better operation – customer-provided feedback leads to improved business processes
- Brand ambassadors – loyal customers willingly endorse your business to friends, family, and followers
- Industry insight – managing customer feelings and other experiences provides a look into how competitors treat customers
Customer experience management should be a top priority for businesses. It is a signifier of a customer-first strategy, demonstrating a clear emphasis on customers’ needs. By tracking and improving the various steps taken by a customer along their journey with your business, you will create positive interactions and increase the value of each customer.
Customer experience management is equally important for new customers as for existing ones. There is never a guarantee that customers will return just because they are satisfied with one purchase. As a business, you should add additional value to your products and shopping experience over time to prevent loss of interest. CXM accounts for the customers looking for more, providing new product ideas, loyalty programs, and thoughtful interactions to keep the customers coming back for more.
7 Ways to Improve Customer Experience Management:
- Create a clear customer experience vision
- Understand who your customers are
- Create an emotional connection with your customers
- Capture customer feedback in real-time
- Use a quality framework for the development of your team
- Act upon regular employee feedback
- Measure the ROI from delivering a great customer experience
Call Centers Improve Customer Experience Management
One of the best ways to improve your business’s CXM is the use of a call center. Call centers, also referred to as contact centers, are at the epicenter of excellent customer experience management. They can handle all inbound and outbound calls, live chats, social media, and everything else required to satisfy customers’ needs. Between the innovative technology and secure cloud solutions they employ, call centers have the necessary tools to maintain significant, meaningful interactions with your customers to boost profits and customer retention.
How Gold Mountain Can Help
Gold Mountain maintains an endless commitment to customer service. Along with the standard inbound and outbound services, we also offer essential customer service management tools such as surveys and alert messaging. Surveys are great for receiving real-time customer feedback and helping your business and our call center agents improve on day-to-day practices. With alert messaging, we can alert customers immediately if a flash sale occurs, they’ve earned a reward through your loyalty program, or other breaking company news happens. Let Gold Mountain Communications be your first choice for customer experience management, no matter what you require.