Customer Experience Management

Knowledge Center

What is Customer Experience Management? Meaning.

The concept of Customer Experience Management (CEM), which was developed by Bernd Schmitt (2003), describes the process of strategically managing a customer’s entire experience with a product or company. The term 'Customer Experience Management' represents the discipline, methodology and/or process used to comprehensively manage a customer's cross-channel exposure, interaction and transaction with a company, product, brand or service.

The CEM framework consists out of following five key areas:

1. The Customer - Analyzing the experiential world of the customer in order to gain insights into the socio-cultural context of consumers (Compare: Multitasking Consumer).

2. The Environment - Building the experiential platform and developing a strategy that includes the Positioning for the kind of experience the brand stands for, the Value Proposition of what relevant experience to deliver and the overall implementation theme that will be communicated.

3. The Brand - Designing the Brand Experience and implementing the experiential platform.

4. The Platform - Structuring the customer interface by implementing the operational infrastructure in stores, during sales visits, in e-commerce engines of website or similar.

5. The Interface - Engaging in continuous innovation and fine-tuning the experience at every point of contact. This area of CEM analysis focuses on the interaction between consumers and the brand, from a human-to-technology, human-to-human, and human-to-environment perspective. Simply defined, this area focuses on refining and optimizing the customer interaction within any channel to produce desired and pleasing outcomes.

Client Expectations

Pope (2010) writes about the expectations of clients in client-organization relationships. Companies rely too often on the TECHNICAL ELEMENTS of the goods and services they produce. Of course, clients do expect a high level of technical ability to produce the desired results and these technical capabilities are an important part of clients’ demands and expectations. However, it is not the only aspect that need to be taken into account when serving clients’ needs.

The other element that needs to be considered is the EMOTIONAL CONNECTION that will develop when working together in a partnership. This is the more affective part that clients seek for. The emotional connection is about the “feel good” factor and refers to repeat experiences that positively influence the emotional level of clients. This more affective part of clients’ expectations are just as important as their technical demands.

Creating an Ultimate Client Experience (UCE)

It is important to mention that the whole organization (rather than just one person) is responsible for delivering the Ultimate Client Experience (UCE). There need to be certain “touch points” between clients and people within various company departments throughout the entire client relationship process. These touch points encourage the creation of a strong relationship and an unforgettable client experience.

Keeping the above in mind, there are 5 critical factors to create an Ultimate Client Experience (besides the technical aspects):

1. Culture: Culture is an important ingredient in any business relationship. Only when there is a client-focused organizational culture, UCE can be realized. Clients should believe it is easy to communicate with the organization.
2. People: Because of the fact that people have the ability to differentiate an organization from others and to outcompete them, they are a very important part of organizations. The best results arise from matching the right people with the right tasks.
3. Relationship: Because good relationships contribute to better client experiences, an important part of realizing the UCE is to continuously invest in the relationships with clients.
4. Understanding the Client: In order to fulfill the expectations of clients, it is of course important to firstly understand what these expectations are. It is not only about the technical qualities, but also about the emotional connections with clients. Only if both aspects are considered, the UCE can be created.
5. Uncommon: According to the article, doing common things in a different way provides a company with uniqueness and will create outstanding client experiences. Therefore, such uncommon ways are of great value; thinking out of the box is therefore a great contribution to the UCE of clients.

Customer Experience versus User Experience

User experience is about how ALL people are interacting with your product or service when they are using it and the experience they receive from these interactions.

Customer experience is focusing on the persons who are buying (and then using) your product or service and the experience they receive from these interactions.

So user experience includes more people. Customer experience includes more touch points.

Source: M. Pope (2010) “The Ultimate Client Experience: Recipe for Success in a Down (or any) Economy “ Business Strategy Series Vol. 11 Iss. 4 pp. 219-222

Forum Forum about Customer Experience Management. Below you can ask a question about this topic, share your experiences, report a new development, or explain something. Start a new topic about Customer Experience Management Share your knowledge here (or ask a question)   Event Marketing In today's complex and competitive marketing environment, reaching the consumer effectively is a "challenge" that most companies face. Marketers therefore have to constantly look for ways to reach con... 7   3 comments Why and How to Capture Client Sentiments In order to ensure that customer experiences are maintained and can be improved, the service delivery model MUST as a necessity capture client sentiments. The system can be DIRECT in the form of a qu... 6   Customer Journey Model The Customer Journey (CJ) Model describes and captures the CJ and customer experience. The CJ describes the experiences of a customer during the virtual 'journey' that a (potential) customer is makin... 6   🔥 NEW Using IT and Artificial Intelligence in Customer Experience Management "Talk is cheap" in Customer Experience Management (CEM). Recognizing the importance of the customer experience or the Customer Journey is one thing, but providing end-to-end personalization across you... 4   3 comments

Best Practices The best, top-rated topics about Customer Experience Management. Here you will find the most valuable ideas and practical suggestions. Customer Experience Management Vs. Customer Relationship Management I saw this comparison of CEM vs. CRM: CRM: left brain, focuses on customer's value to enterprise, systems and interactions, functional value. CEM: right brain, focuses on enterprise's value to custo... 10   5 comments Types of Customer Variability and Strategies How to Tackle Them In case of PRODUCT purchase, customers can't customize their experience a lot, they choose the products which best suits their needs. But in a SERVICE business, customers may have more unpredictable b... 8   How to Integrate Customer Experiences in your Business Model? Since products and services are increasingly becoming commoditized and similar, many companies are trying to differentiate themselves by creating a unique "customer experience". Pine and Gilmore (201... 8   4 comments Actions by Companies to Demonstrate Empathy for Customers Amidst the Pandemic The Covid-19 pandemic is a tough era for many businesses. Over the past months, companies had to quickly adjust to the Corona situation. The first steps most companies took was to stabilize operations... 3

Expert Tips Advanced insights about Customer Experience Management. Here you will find professional advices by experts. A Closer Look Into Customer Value Customer Value Analysis, Strategic Marketing, Innovation Strategy It is often argued that customer value is required for staying competitive and successful as organization. But in what w... Four Ways in Which People Experience Any Organization Corporate Reputation, Customer Perception, Customer Experience Management, Online Reputation The reputation of an organization depends mainly from the way that the organization’s constituencies experience/perceive... Customer Relationship TYPES CRM, Relation Marketing, Branding Next time you're using the term "CRM", remember there's an R in it... The R of "Relationship". Actually, customers (wan... The Three Stage Model of Service Consumption (Service Encounter) Consumption Behavior, Service Marketing, Strategic Marketing Management According to the three-stage model of service consumption, consumers go through 3 stages of service encounter namely; th... Extreme Customer Trust as a Source of Competitive Advantage Competitive Advantage, CRM, Customer Loyalty, Customer Intimacy Many companies are already highlighting the importance of trustworthiness by setting and sustaining honest prices and pr... The Importance of Customer Differences in Markets with Network Effects: the Limits of Scale Network Effect, Network Strategy, First Mover Advantage, Second-mover Strategy, Customer Intimacy, Market Segmentation The network effect (Metcalfe's Law) is the phenomenon that the value of a product or service increases (exponentially) w...

Information Sources Various sources of information regarding Customer Experience Management. Here you will find powerpoints, videos, news, etc. to use in your own lectures and workshops. Service Quality Models SERVQUAL, Service Quality Management, CRM, CEM, Customer Loyalty, Customer Satisfaction This presentation elaborates on service quality, especially focusing on perceptions and expectations of consumers and th... Introduction to Customer/Consumer Satisfaction Consumer Satisfaction, Customer Satisfaction 1. What is satisfaction? 2. Satisfaction focuses on fulfillment in varieties 3. What is dissatisfaction? 4. Manageria... Customer Experience Trends for 2021 What's Hot in CEM, CEM Trends Which customer experience trends will shape 2021? What will CX look like in 2021? 8 customer experience trends are goin... Example and Consequences of (Poor) Customer Experience Management Understanding what a Customer Experience Is Simple example with nice graphics of a poor customer experience and the consequences of that.... How to Deliver Exceptional Customer Service and Client Satisfaction Customer Experience Management, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service, CRM This presentation elaborates briefly on customer service delivery for customer experience management. The presentation i... The Expectations Consumers have of Services Customer Experience Management, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Quality, Quality Management, SERVQUAL This presentation elaborates on customer expectations on services. The presentation includes the following sections: 1.... The Internet / Social Media Revolution Social Media, Internet Strategy, Internet Impact, Digital Revolution Video shows how fast social media is growing. And gives a clear status of the position of social media by 2014. Great s... Customer Value Management Organizational Management, Value Creation Preesentation about Customer Value Management (CVM) by J. Blanc. It includes the following sections: 1. Definition of C...

Research Links Jump to further research sources regarding Customer Experience Management. News Videos Presentations   Books Academic More

Compare with: Positioning  |  Customer Relationship Management  |  Marketing Mix  |  Extended Marketing Mix (7-Ps)  |  Framing  |  Brand Personality Dimensions  |  Brand Asset Valuator  |  Reputation Quotient  |  Multi Channel Marketing  |  Analytical CRM  |  Focus Group  |  Online Corporate Reputation  |  Hospitality Management

Return to Management Hub: Communication & Skills  |  Marketing & Sales

More on Management  |  Return to Management Dictionary

This ends our Customer Experience Management summary and forum.