What Does Customer Experience Management Mean?
Customer experience management (CXM or CEM) is a business strategy that focuses on crafting and managing the total experience a customer has with a company’s products or services. It requires an organization’s employees to understand the entire customer journey from awareness to brand loyalty.
This involves monitoring and evaluating every aspect of the advertising process, the sales process, the support process, and every instance where a business interacts with its customers, online or otherwise. The goal is to provide customers with positive experiences at every point of their journey.
Techopedia Explains Customer Experience Management
CXM asks business leaders to put themselves in the customers’ shoes and understand their customers’ experiences as they interact with the business through different communication channels.
Effective CXM initiatives can enrich the quality of relationships that customer relationship management (CRM) systems are designed to manage.
Evaluating Customer Experience Management
CXM relies on a combination of analytics, feedback systems, and other tools to gauge and improve the overall customer experience. Popular tools include:
Heatmap tools: These visually represent where users click, move, and scroll on a webpage. They provide insights into how users interact with web content and help businesses optimize layouts and calls to action (CTAs). Popular heatmap tools include Hotjar and Crazy Egg.
Session replay/recording tools: These tools record user sessions, allowing businesses to watch real user interactions on their website. Tools like Heap and Contentsquare can help provide a deeper understanding of user behavior, points of friction, and areas for improvement.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) tools: NPS is a metric used to gauge customer loyalty. Tools like Delighted or AskNicely can automate NPS surveys and provide data-driven insights into customer satisfaction and loyalty over time.
Voice of the Customer (VoC) platforms: These platforms collect and analyze customer feedback from various sources to offer a comprehensive understanding of customer needs and sentiments. Medallia and Qualtrics are notable examples.
A/B Testing tools: Used for testing variations of web pages to see which performs better in terms of user engagement and conversions. Examples include Optimizely and VWO.
Chatbots and AI-driven support: Tools like Intercom or Drift can engage users in real-time, answering queries, collecting feedback, or guiding them through the website to enhance the user experience.
Personalization engines: These tools use user data and behavior to create personalized experiences on websites or apps. Dynamic Yield and Salesforce Marketing Cloud are two examples.
User Experience (UX) design software: Tools like Figma or Sketch, while primarily used for design, play an essential role in crafting the visual and interactive elements of the customer experience.
Social media listening tools: Platforms like Brandwatch or Mention analyze mentions and sentiments on social media platforms, giving companies insights into the public’s perception and experience with their brand.