Customer Experience Management (CEM) is a very popular topic among call center leadership groups. It is an area I am very interested in, however I have found that many people have different definitions for it, and differing perspectives on how a customer contact center can influence customer experience. I’d like to open a discussion surrounding this popular industry movement by asking a few questions.
Here is the question of Richard:
1. Do you actively engage in Customer Experience Management?
2. How do you define CEM, and how are you able to “manage” the customer experience?
3. What types of metrics and standards do you have in place to measure your success or failure?
4. Where did you learn about CEM, and what resources do you reference to stay up-to-date in this area?
5. Who are the leading professionals in this arena?
Here I find the answer:
I’ve published quite a lot on customer experience management, including articles, webcasts, podcasts, and handbooks. To answer your questions:
1. I designed and led customer experience management (CEM) programs for more than half of my career in Fortune 250 companies. CEM is a great passion of mine, and the focus of my consulting business now.
2. CEM spans from the point at which a customer is aware of a need, until the point at which that need becomes extinct. It comprises a multitude of functional, social and personal expectations and goodness judgments. CEM focuses on the customer’s desired outcome, and views the supplying company’s products/services/processes as a means to the customer achieving his/her desired outcome. You may be interested in these articles which explain this:
- http://customer.ology.com/what-is-customer-experience/
- http://clearaction.biz/blog/customer-centricity-by-discerning-custo…
3. CEM metrics are ideally the customer’s inherent metrics: using the wording and context that the customer uses. Lagging indicators are surveys and trends monitored via call center logs, CRM, social media, complaint systems, etc. — because they measure what the customer already experienced. Leading indicators are customer sentiment root cause action plan metrics — because they measure progress of changes that the customer will soon experience. You may be interested in these articles that explain this:
- http://clearaction.biz/blog/whats-your-customer-experience-value-qu…
- http://clearaction.biz/blog/4-tips-keeping-goals-initiatives-on-tra…
Additionally, I recorded a webcast with CCPF on how the contact center can help drive CEM enterprise-wide:
- http://snurl.com/t9y3d – 4 Steps to Gain Recognition as the Irreplaceable Change Agent You Are!
4. In addition to practicing these principles as I supervised customer programs in my own career, I learned about CEM initially via customer retention/loyalty literature in the 80s/90s, and more specifically the CEM literature that emerged in the 00s: Customer Experience Management by Bernd H. Schmitt, Chief Customer Officer by Jeanne Bliss, Building Great Customer Experiences by Colin Shaw, What Customers Want by Anthony Ulwick, Loyalty Myths by Timonthy Keiningham. I have written an ehandbook, Innovating Superior Customer Experience available at Amazon Kindle store and as a computer desktop ready reference:
- http://www.clearaction.biz/innovation.html
5. Leading professionals can be found at www.customerthink.com, and as speakers at CEM conferences. You may be interested in a summary of recent CEM studies at:
- http://www.clearaction.biz/customer-engagement.html
Thanks, Richard, for posting a very interesting set of questions.
Thanks, Lynn, for answer these questions!
