How to Be a Customer Experience Manager for Your Organization: Using the CEM Approach
How to Achieve Effective Customer Experience Management (CEM)
In an increasingly customer-centric business environment, it has become important for managers to
stay connected with the overall customer experience. The role of the organization does not end with the successful execution of a sale. The organization must go the extra mile to ensure that the customer actually achieves the real benefits that he perceived from the company’s product or service. Therefore, it is very important for the managers of today to understand how to be a customer experience manager. It is their critical responsibility to help the organization manage a 360 degree customer experience with the brand.
Ensuring Customer Delight
To become a customer experience manager, every sales manager must aspire to go beyond the stage of customer satisfaction and achieve customer delight. The goal must be to turn a satisfied customer into a loyal customer with an emotional connect with the brand. Once the stage of customer loyalty and customer delight is reached, the organization stands to gain hugely in terms of customer advocacy.
A delighted customer is the most effective asset for any business because he brings word-of-mouth publicity. In order to achieve this goal of customer delight, the manager needs to create an association with the customer that goes beyond the point of sale. It requires personalized attention, involvement and sensitivity toward the customer’s needs that may arise after the sale is executed.
Fulfilling Customer Expectations
Every customer has certain expectations from the brand. The traditional customer relationship managers sometimes make the mistake of emphasizing too much on the price, product and the business process, while ignoring the customer’s expectations and aspirations. This may result in a serious mismatch between the organizational approach to customer satisfaction and the actual needs and desires of the customers. Customer experience management, as opposed to CRM, is not enterprise-centric and achieves maximum efficiency through ensuring customer satisfaction.
In order to understand how to be a customer experience manager, you need a high level of sensitivity and empathy to put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Great customer experience involves strategic planning, redefining the business model with customer at its center, integrating technology to make it more customer-friendly, and effective brand management to fulfill customer expectations from the brand. Employees must be involved in the process to fulfill brand promises to the customer’s satisfaction.
Implementing Customer Experience Solutions
One of the effective tools available to the customer experience manager is communication technology which must be utilized optimally to provide an enriching experience to the customers. The manager and his team should be available to the customers through online channels, mobile devices, e-conferencing, web chat and email. This must be complimented by physical contact points which include customer experience stores at various key locations. End-to-end customer solutions are a crucial part of the customer experience management (CEM) strategy.
Photo Credit: www.sxc.hu len-k-a
