As competition intensifies, you must take a proactive approach to defining the playbook for your team to boost customer satisfaction and retention.
That’s where successful customer experience management (CXM) comes into play. It acts as a map, guiding business owners through every detail of their customers’ journeys.
Customer interactions — be they on social media, in physical stores, or on a support center call — must have positive customer sentiment, ultimately serving as a building block for a lasting brand–customer relationship.
In this guide, we’ll explore the benefits of CXM, discover strategies to refine your customer lifecycle and learn about CXM software that can help you chart a course to exceptional service.
What Is Customer Experience Management?
Customer Experience Management (CXM) is the set of strategies and processes businesses use to track, organize, and optimize every customer interaction.
From their first visit to your website to their post-purchase survey, CX management is a complete map of their journey with you. It provides a chance to get to know your customers inside and out, predict their needs, and tailor their experiences to meet or exceed their expectations.
Think of customer experience management as an orchestra, and you, the business owner, are the conductor. Each part of the orchestra represents a different department: marketing, sales, product development, or customer support. Your job is to make these elements work in harmony to deliver a great experience.
With each interaction, you’ll take note of an insight, notice a pattern, or receive feedback Voice of the Customer (VoC). Use this information to make changes, such as adjusting your marketing or enhancing your customer advocacy, to continuously improve your customer’s experience.
Business owners will be happy to hear that 70% of consumers spend more with companies that offer great customer experiences , according to a 2023 report by Zendesk.
Echoing this report is the success of the consulting firm McKinsey . Their customer experience strategy has led them to impressive results over the past decade, including increases in sales by up to 20%, decreases in service costs of up to 50%, and increases in customer satisfaction of up to 20% for over 900 of their clients.
A customer experience management strategy isn’t a month-long initiative. Ongoing, integrated tactics will help your business tap into the greatest benefits of CXM. Read on to learn more.
Benefits of Customer Experience Management
1. Achieve a stronger product–market fit
An effective customer experience management strategy is like a compass that guides you through the needs of your existing and new customers. By staying in constant contact with them, you gain more opportunities to promote greater customer advocacy.
This helps you anticipate and exceed expectations, crafting offerings perfectly suited to each customer profile.
2. Improve your employee experience
Customers aren’t the only ones who benefit from effective CXM — employees do too. Having more positive customer experiences means dealing with fewer angry ones, resulting in more enjoyable interactions for employees.
A happier workforce leads to more trust, engagement, and productivity at work.
3. Reduce churn
By cultivating deeper links and unlocking customer loyalty, effective customer experience management reduces customer churn.
A business that prides itself in consistently meeting or exceeding customer expectations knows how to foster trust with customers and deliver satisfaction, making it much less likely that customers will turn to your competitors.
These days, the stakes are high.
A single negative customer experience can have significant consequences on brand loyalty: 32% of customers would consider switching companies after only one poor experience, reports PwC and 16% would even pay more for higher quality service.
At the heart of reducing churn lies empathy.
Customer experience best practices, such as personalized experiences, simple onboarding, and proactive problem-solving, create caring connections with your existing customers and help ease their pain points.
Good customer experience management adds stability to your customer base and ensures long-term profitability.
Effective strategies to lower customer churn (via Gartner)
Effective strategies to lower customer churn (via Gartner)
4. Create more profitable customer segments
A focus on CXM initiatives can also help you identify and cultivate more profitable customer segments.
By studying these segments, identifying patterns, reviewing customer interactions, and analyzing feedback, companies can establish which segments are more engaged and assign these a higher lifetime value.
With the right customer experience management platform, companies can now tailor their offerings based on qualitative customer data, ultimately boosting their bottom line.
By knowing and providing your customers with exactly what they need, they’ll become brand advocates, sharing word-of-mouth reviews and driving further business growth on your behalf.
5. Increase operational efficiency
The impact of CXM on operations is often overlooked.
Key customer insights can identify redundant processes and help you shape more efficient operations for customers. This measure is all about cutting costs and creating an agile company that responds well to customer needs.
Above all, customer experience management helps your entire team meaningfully increase customer loyalty as a routine business function — not merely a one-off effort to grow NPS survey responses.
Helpful Strategies for a Unified Customer Experience
