|
Vendor Accent
Customer experience management: is it just another name for CRM?
By Randy Saunders, Cincom Systems
 Lately
many analysts and other thought leaders have dramatically increased their attention
to “Customer Experience Management (CEM).” As interest grows, countless
consulting firms are claiming expertise and developing offerings and even dedicated
practices focused on CEM.
Since many of these experts also have a Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
background, often the terms CEM and CRM are confused and used interchangeably.
But there are fundamental differences.
Traditionally many CRM systems have been internally or operationally centric,
collecting and profiling customer data for marketing and cross-selling purposes.
Too often the emphasis has been on the company’s goals and not necessarily
on what the customer really wants.
CEM on the other hand is outwardly or highly customer-centric and utilises systems,
technologies and simplified processes to improve the customer’s experience
with the company.
According to Shaun Smith, co-author of the book “Managing the Customer
Experience: Turning Customers into Advocates:”
- More than $46 billion was spent on CRM systems to
help institutions get closer to customers.
- Yet, Gartner Research estimates that 55 percent
of CRM programs drive customers away and dilute earnings.
- Brand loyalty has declined overall by 25 percent,
but good brand experiences can increase customer loyalty by 33 percent.
Why are satisfied customers leaving?
80 percent of customers who switch suppliers express “satisfaction”
with their previous supplier. Why? Because “customer satisfaction”
is just not enough.
However, companies that are able to create a customer experience
that is consistent, intentional, differentiated, and valuable have truly loyal
customers that can’t imagine doing business with anyone else. In fact,
these “advocates” can’t stop telling their friends and colleagues
about you.
Great customer experiences are no accident
If your CRM system is not helping you deliver this type of experience to your
customers, you’re not alone. Gartner is one of many analysts firms stressing
the importance of the customer experience and becoming more “customer-centric.”
In their 2006 CRM study, they state that four of the top ten priorities are:
1. Building and managing customer loyalty
2. Creating a single view of the customer
3. Creating a customer-centric enterprise
4. Managing/improving the customer experience
Looking for an unbeatable competitive advantage?
Savvy organisations are proving the answer lies in optimizing
the entire experience for customers across all points of interaction and in
all activities. Front-end or customer-facing applications, contact centres,
branches and every employee must provide that consistent and desired experience
across every touch point.
Turning Customers into Advocates
Your brand is on trial each and every time the customer interacts with your
company. Like it or not, how you choose to direct and manage that experience
determines whether you have legions of loyal customers or a loose collection
of transients just waiting for an alternative.
When you create an experience so positively powerful that
it burns a memory of your company’s brand into your customer’s mind,
they can’t wait to return for more. And they’ll bring their friends
and colleagues along.
|
|
|
By Randy Saunders, Cincom Systems
Customer experience, and by extension the ongoing
business relationship with any customer, lives and dies at the point of
contact. All the glossy advertising in the world cannot compensate for
a consistently weak experience. “Surveys find that only 26 percent
of a purchase decision is influenced by advertising. By far the factors
more frequently cited are personal experience and referrals,” says
customer experience expert Shaun Smith of Shaun Smith + co, former Head
of Customer Service, Sales, and Marketing Training for British Airways
and more recently, VP of Customer Experience for the Forum Corporation.
Ideally, advertising serves to establish a promise
and an expectation for a unique and appealing customer experience, which
is then confirmed and reinforced every single time the customer touches
the organisation. That puts the contact centre on the hook, yet uniquely
placed, to sustain the customer experience regardless of changes elsewhere
in the organisation.
The best customer experiences are delivered by
companies that have so deeply embedded their brand message and customer
priorities in their DNA that each and every agent can present the best
the company has to offer. They create self-sustaining customer communities
that are so focused on their interaction with each other that they may
even forgive the occasional mishap, and see it as an opportunity to actively
engage with the company and make improvements because they believe their
patronage is truly valued.
No barriers – Customer experience permeates
Achieving that goal requires a customer-service
commitment that completely denies the existence of barriers. The customer
experience will surely break down if the different communities that make
up an organisation do not understand the role they must play to build
and maintain it. This means paying more than lip service to the concept
of customer centricity – it requires aligning the internal organisations
that provide the “care and feeding” of customers to achieve
the same goal – building and maintaining the environment that provides
the right service to the right customers and creates value for those customers
they cannot get anywhere else. “Really strong brands have marketing,
customer service, and human resources all working as one around a common
agenda, which is the customer experience,” Smith says.
Marketing’s contribution is the articulation
and refinement of the brand promise, using advertising and outreach to
communicate the virtues of doing business with your company and setting
it apart from competitors and pretenders. The customer service organisation
must be prepared, on a monthly, daily, weekly, and hourly basis, to deliver
on that promise to customers, with the right training, systems, and most
importantly, management support to make the right decisions by each and
every caller.
Human Resources’ role in this process cannot
be overlooked. Look at the global market for customer-service personnel
as an opportunity, rather than a negative. HR should focus on bringing
people into the organisation that will be a natural fit for the customer
experience, who can believe in the company’s brand mission, and who
will use every tool and opportunity at their disposal to preserve that
experience whenever possible.
Technology can help. A unified desktop that provides
a 360-degree of the customer enables every person with the entire organization
to share the same common view of all customer experiences. Marketing,
Human Resources, Finance, the Executive Suite, and so on, can all share
a common view and extract exactly the insight to help the organisation
support and deliver the promises made or requests extended.
The contact centre’s role in a customer experience
management strategy cannot be underestimated. Consumers perceive that
a company’s ability to respond to a problem or request has a higher
influence on an excellent experience than any other attribute. That puts
the contact centre ever-more front and centre in creating that experience
–consistently, intentionally, but in a manner that is differentiated
and adds value.
Your customer experience can never be better than
the people you place on the end of every telephone call, e-mail, or web
chat, and the quality of the technology they rely on. Only they have the
unique opportunity to strengthen your relationships every time a customer
reaches out, and that can only happen if they are given the tools and
trust to make every contact the right contact. “It is about having
people who like people, who have personalities, and are willing to engage
with customers and get beyond the form-filling,” Smith says. “You
need a working environment where people are naturally curious and interested
in doing business with your customers–not where they are driven by
management to pick up the phone within three rings every time.”
This article is an excerpt from the white paper
“Customer Experience Happens in the Contact Centre, With Insights
from Shaun Smith.” Go to www.cincom.com/shaunsmith to download the
complete white paper or to view a webcast titled “See, Feel, Think,
Do - Creating Breakthrough Ideas to Deliver the Perfect Customer Experience,”
in which Shaun Smith presents a lively discussion on how to build great
customer experiences.
|
Randy Saunders is the marketing director for Cincom’s
Customer Experience Management products.
He can be contacted at rsaunders@cincom.com.
|
