Ensure the success and longevity of your business by utilizing customer experience management (CEM) to enhance customer loyalty and satisfaction. By maintaining your customer base for the long-haul, you’ll also be able to attract new business with your company’s experience and reputation.

Seek customer experience management education to discover strategies to help clients feel valued and satisfied and ensure your employees know how to implement effective customer service measures. Stay up to date with current CEM techniques by:

1. Signing up for customer experience management training courses to learn the basics for developing a CEM experience management program or obtain the skills necessary to become a customer experience manager.
2. Enrolling in seminars to get focused training in new customer experience management solutions or tools like customer experience management software to assist with your CEM customer programs.
3. Finding online customer experience management courses to develop new customer satisfaction strategies without taking time off from operating your business.
   

Action Steps
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Take training classes to help implement a successful customer experience management program

Receiving a certification in client experience management demonstrates your expertise in this customer service subset and makes you more marketable if you're seeking a job or promotion in the field. Take classes that provide methods to improve your company's overall customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well.

I recommend: Strativity Group offers certification programs in customer experience management. Topics include CEM pitfalls, tips for implementing new CEM programs and ways to use positive customer experience to drive company growth. Receive training through the Customer Experience Management summit held by the American Strategic Management Institute. If you can’t attend, the organization also offers several classes and customized training options to consider.

Use specialized customer experience management consulting workshops to fine tune your program

Focused seminars offered by CEM consultants or management organizations provide helpful refreshers or opportunities to learn new strategies that take advantage of industry trends. Consider workshops that let you break into small groups to afford networking opportunities, as well.

I recommend: Register for customer experience management workshops and events through the Institute for International Research. The organization also offers seminars focused on customer management, loyalty and satisfaction. Roger Reece Seminars offers workshops to enhance customer experience management programs and improve service value.

Participate in self-paced CEM customer experience management training to learn on the job

If you're researching jobs as a client experience manager or striving to improve your company's customer experience management program, but can't take time off work to receive additional training, use online opportunities as continuing education. You'll be able to learn at your own convenience without missing a day on the job.

I recommend: ResponseTek offers customer experience management webinars discussing the value and best practices of CEM solutions. Attend online seminars from Amiando to help you build a CEM program that measures and increases customer loyalty and retention. ClearBrick offers an on-demand seminar on the customer experience and the benefits of customer experience management.

Customer experience management (CEM) means customer loyalty and long-term retention. Every small business owner should incorporate its principles into existing business strategies and goals for improved return on investment. To understand the customer experience management definition, consider your customer base. You spend money to attract new customers and pay them lots of attention at first, but that attention tends to dwindle after awhile, much like a marriage after the honeymoon when partners take each other for granted. When customers feel under appreciated or pushed aside in favor of new customers, they often take their business to your competition.

Customers today now expect and demand a quality, customer service-oriented experience every time they deal with you—in addition to the product or service you sell. Client experience management focuses on the long-term relationship between employees and customers and forces companies to actually plan for making their customers' experiences memorable. Use the following tools to improve your company's CEM:

1. Provide CEM customer service training for your employees that will fully immerse them in the concept of customer experience management.

2. Hire CEM consultants to make your business customer-centric.

3. Incorporate software and other technologies specializing in online customer experience management.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Schedule customer experience management training for your employees

All your employees can learn and benefit from CEM training that teaches them to take the initiative in shaping their customers' experiences in your place of business.

I recommend: Contact the Rainmaker Group to arrange customer experience training for you and your employees. They'll help you create the right kind of customer experiences to encourage customer loyalty. Put your employees through a training program by Customer Focus designed to inspire them to create positive, value-added experiences for your customers. Customer Focus, an international customer service training company, provides employees with the skills, knowledge, motivation and values to keep customers for life.

Work with a customer experience management consulting firm to develop a tailored solution

Bring in the pros to get your employees on track with the right attitudes, work ethics, customer oriented actions and customer experience management solutions. CEM consultants can step in with experience, vision and focus to get your employees, sales representatives and office staff to go the extra mile for your customers. customer experience management solutions.

I recommend: Consider contracting with Strativity Group, a global firm, for CEM consulting services that include customer strategy assessment, customer experience inventory and customer experience structure. Contact LRA Worldwide to discuss their CEM consulting services. Their methodology includes customer experience assessment, design, implementation and measurement. Visit the Kinesis website to learn more about the consulting services offered by this research/consulting company that thrives on the concept of CEM as a profit-based approach to customer service and uses tools like customer satisfaction surveys, mystery shopping, training programs and incentive programs.

Find solutions for online customer experience management

Whether you hire a company or purchase customer experience management software, you can't forget that CEM refers to all customer touch points--including online contacts.

I recommend: Contact CEM Group to talk about how they can improve your customers' online experience and relationship with your company. An interactive services firm that works with clients throughout the U.S., CEM Group builds an online CEM program combining new technologies, foundations of intelligent design and customer-centric business process strategy. Learn more about online CEM software solutions offered by Tealeaf Technology that let you capture your online customer activity in real time, from general activity all the way down to page-by-page clicks on your website.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  CEM experience management works from the top down; you and your managers must first embrace CEM to ensure its success, so ensure each of you buys into the concept, receives training and becomes a genuine customer experience manager, or you've wasted your time.

Customer Experience Management (CEM) is also known as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and refers to the process by which a company tracks contact with its customers. The typical goals of CEM are to improve the company's customer service and to conduct targeted marketing campaigns to the company's customers. CEM can be implemented without software, although software is frequently needed to provide the maximum benefits. CEM software should provide the support that will allow employees to take advantage of information about customers. CEM also uses a combination of business processes, such as operations, customer relationships and analysis to provide consistent customer interactions.

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Operational CRM

Operational CRM provides support for customer interactions that are performed by marketing, sales and service staff. These records are generally part of the contact histories for the customer.

I recommend: MITEM provides a detailed description of operational CRM and also provides a specific example.

Analytical CRM

Analytical CRM uses data mining on customer records to make business decisions. These decisions can include designing targeted marketing campaigns, making pricing decisions and financial forecasting.

I recommend: CRM Software describes analytical CRM and illustrates its use in a real-world business.

Sales intelligence CRM

Sales Intelligence CRM provides direct sales tools by analyzing customer records. Common features of sales intelligence CRM include identifying sales opportunities, sales performance and customer trends.

I recommend: Businessways offers an overview of the specific aspects of CRM, including sales intelligence CRM.

Open source CRM

Open source CRM is CRM software for which the source code is publicly available. Businesses frequently use open source CRM since it is free, but it can have disadvantages.

I recommend: The Customer Service Zone provides a definition of open source software and also discusses the pros and cons of open source CRM.

Collaborative CRM

Collaborative CRM coordinates the CRM processes between the different departments within a company, such as marketing, sales and technical support. For example, customer support agents may receive feedback from staff members of other departments regarding the features and services requested by customers.

I recommend: Inside CRM offers a more elaborate definition of collaborative CRM and also provides a specific example.

Sales process engineering (SPE)

Sales process engineering (SPE) is the application of scientific principles towards a sales process for achieving a particular goal. CRM frequently plays a important role in SPE.

I recommend: Sales Process Engineering provides a detailed definition of SPE, along with a discussion of its benefits. The effect of implementing SPE is to transition salespeople into true team members.

So what is Customer Experience Management (CEM) and why are we hearing so much about it? The idea behind Customer Experience Management is that businesses need to go the extra mile to retain customers and clients, and to do that, they need solid internal metrics. Therefore, they turn to solutions for Customer Experience Management, to look at the whole process of what their customer goes through for an eventual transaction.

Businesses might need a lot of help figuring out how to deal with Customer Experience Management software or strategy in a specific way that is optimal for their business needs. The web can help executives get a little education on which way to go with CEM strategies. Internet resources contain articles on Customer Experience Management (CEM) news and trends:

1. For helping a business to link up with the right Customer Experience Manager consultants who will use CEM customer service or retention methods to get business going and keep it thriving.

2. For brushing up on aspects of online Customer Experience Management tools to present to staff.

3. For the edification of a business team or task force assigned to improve a customer experience at any cost with CEM experience management tools.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Get Customer Experience Management press releases and info from company newsrooms

Company newsrooms can be a good way to keep one's ear to the ground regarding news on Customer Experience Management definition tools, programs and conferences. Events can usually be broadcast through these types of web channels.

I recommend: Check out items like this one on a CEM presentation at the online newsroom at Cincom. See more in the news venues of firms like Accenture.

Look for more on Customer Experience Management from online magazines

Online magazines for businesses tend to cover elements like CEM because they are so integral to success. Readers might see info type news or features on how to innovate with CEM.

I recommend: Get details on Customer Experience Management training and tools from articles like this one on a "customer experience summit" and related info from the CRM Magazine blog spot. Find more from magazines like Business Week.

Find more sites with Customer Experience Management news

Other sites provide additional resources for those who want to learn more about the idea of Customer Experience Management or just browse product and consulting offerings while getting their own idea about what their business can use.

I recommend: A group called TeaLeaf operates an independent site where Customer Experience Management gets a lot of recognition. Browse articles and check out specific links to software and tools. For more, try info pages like this one from Retail Customer Experience.