Benelux Blog

Integrating Customer Experience Management (CXM) into your business strategy

By Bart Haedens, Business Director Digital, Sopra Steria Belgium
minute read

In my previous article Design Leadership vs. Management: Aligning Vision with Operations, I briefly introduced Experience Management, sparking several interesting discussions.  

In this follow-up article, I want to take a deeper dive into this concept, specifically focusing on Customer Experience Management (CXM) and its strategic importance in driving business success.  

 

What is Customer Experience Management?  

Customer Experience Management (CXM) is all about the orchestrated management of interactions, touchpoints, and processes shaping your customer's overall experience with your organization. This includes both physical and digital experiences across multiple channels. Typical examples are customer onboarding flows, helpdesk interactions, advertising, and so forth.  The overall goal is to create a cohesive and positive experience that aligns within the broader business strategy.  

Typically, modern businesses and customer experience managers map these interactions within the scope of a customer journey exercise ensuring a holistic view of how customers experience your service, rather than a fragmented, siloed perspective.  

In essence, what CXM aims to measure and improve is the entire customer experience, much like what Net Promoter Score (NPS) attempts to quantify.  

 

Why should you care about Customer Experience Management?  

CXM is a critical requirement in an increasingly digital world. Today customer attention spans and tolerance for a poor experience online are at an all-time low. Ensuring your customer can transition seamlessly through the different steps required to achieve a sale through applications, for example, has become a core priority for many organizations.  

This delivers a number of value drivers that are key to your growth: 

  • Enhancing customer loyalty and retention: While a 'good enough' customer interaction might prevent customers from wanting to leave, it's not enough anymore to make them stay. To remain relevant, organisations should have a strategic and structural focus on value enhancement and low-effort resolution to boost customer retention, positive word of mouth, and wallet share.  
  • Gaining a competitive edge: In today's competitive market, an exceptional customer experience helps organisations differentiate. Prioritizing Customer Experience Management as part of their business strategy results in higher customer satisfaction rates and an improved market positioning.  
  • Driving revenue growth: Positive customer experiences have a direct impact on revenue growth. Not only will satisfied customers purchase additional products or services, but they will also become advocates and promote your brand through word-of mouth, social media, and other channels, which will drive new customers to your business.  

 

What is the impact of (not) doing it  

  • Negative Consequences: Ignoring CXM can result in confused customer interactions, annoyance, and eventually, customer attrition. Positive experiences are rarely shared as frequently as negative ones, which can harm your company's reputation.  
  • Missed Opportunities: Without a cohesive CXM strategy, you may miss out on valuable insights into customer behaviour and preferences. This can hinder your ability to innovate and adapt to changing customer needs.  

 

Centralisation: Why can't you leave it up to your different departments?  

Leaving your customer experience optimization to individual departments will lead to a fragmented approach.  

While each department will optimize its own processes, overall customer experience will suffer without a unified strategy. For example, marketing might develop a beautiful online onboarding flow, but if underlying back-office processes cause significant delays, customer experience will be ruined.  

By centralizing customer experience management, several departments are able to collaborate on the same, overarching mission: providing a flawless and outstanding customer experience.  

 

Conclusion  

Customer Experience Management is an essential part of a successful business strategy, not just a tactical one. The advantages it offers to client retention, competitive advantage, and overall business performance make it well worth the investment. 

Investing in CXM is not just about keeping up with the competition; it's about building a customer-centric culture that drives long-term growth and success. If you haven't already, it's time to make Customer Experience Management a central part of your business strategy.  

If your organization needs help implementing Customer Experience Management or doesn't know where to start, Sopra Steria is at your service! Please feel free to contact us using the details below. 

 

Bart Haedens 

Business Director Digital 

 

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