CEM

Customer Experience Management

Customer Experience Management (CEM) is a system of business strategies and technologies that focuses on customer engagement, satisfaction, and experience. The foundation of customer experience management is a comprehensive view of the customer informed by data on who they are and their goals when interacting with your company.

CEM Foundation: Voice-of-the-Customer Data 

A Voice of the Customer program gives a customer experience team insight into customer preferences, issues, concerns, and complaints. Companies use VoC data to assess their current experiences and understand how to improve future interactions and relationships. 

  • VoC programs begin with a plan and technologies to collect robust and comprehensive customer data
  • Text analysis helps companies understand both what customers say individually and in aggregate
  • Sentiment analysis helps clarify feelings about the brand and interactions customers have with it
  • Ongoing tracking helps identify directional changes in customer ratings and perceptions over time

Turning VoC Data into a CEM Plan

Customer experience tracking isn’t about simply measuring customer sentiment but rather turning insights about the customer and their experiences into an action plan. Effective CEM leadership brings vision and clarity to a company’s customer experience to facilitate ongoing improvement.

  • Identifying the business objective of a company’s customer experience management plan
  • Clarifying the goals of the CEM program in the short-, medium- and long-terms
  • Defining the strategies that will be used for effective customer experience management
  • Pinpointing the metrics we will use to measure customer perceptions and track progress

Components of Effective Customer Experience Management

Sound strategy and governance are paramount elements of any effective CEM program. Each is critical for setting and maintaining objectives and goals for CEM program. Additional key implements include

  • Business Process Development to embed the principles of CEM into company operations 
  • Data Collection Method outlines how customer feelings and sentiment are tracked
  • Reporting outlines how we reveal CEM insights to stakeholders in the organization
  • Research explains how the company gleans insights and value from customer sentiment data

Customer Experience Management (CEM) v. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Many people confuse CEM with CRM because they both relate to experiences, sentiments, and preferences. The key difference is in perspective. CRM relates to how companies see customers. CEM relates to how customers perceive companies. 

  • CRM focuses on what customers do. CEM on how customers feel. 
  • CRM focuses on how companies interact with customers. CEM focuses on how customers feel about those interactions with the company
  • CRM data relates to actions and attributes. CEM data assesses attitudes and feelings
  • CRM often focuses on individual interactions whereas CEM focuses on the overall customer experience

Most Common Challenges for Effective CEM

The most common CEM challenges relate to the quality of the data available and the level of internal support for customer experience management initiatives. Customer experience leaders often cite these four issues as their key barriers to additional progress for their product teams.

  • Not enough voice-of-the-customer data to accurately assess customer experiences
  • Lack of omnichannel support so that the view of the customer is partial/biased
  • Lack of genuine sentiment insight to uncover customer feelings 
  • Lack of company buy-in on the need for robust CEM programs or ongoing efforts

FICX and Customer Experience Management

Digital Self-Service is an essential component of any strategy to please and satisfy customers. The FICX CX Automation Platform enhances your CX work by empowering you to develop and deliver digital self-service experiences 10X faster, and at 90+% lower cost, than custom development. It is an end-to-end solution offering everything you need to provide outstanding CX through self-service channels at every touchpoint.

  • Design and implement customer-facing experience apps without a single line of code
  • Leverage pre-built customer service workflows, templates, and data integrations
  • Include form logic, customer data form fill, dynamic pdf builder, e-sign, and more
  • Easy-to-use integration builder for dynamic forms and digital customer experiences

Looking to Expand Your Digital Self-Service Capabilities?