Discover how the platform can support your growth and deliver a seamless experience for customers and partners in your use case with minimal effort.
„In short, we were impressed by the modularity and scalability with which you can work in the system. "
Siegfried SchneiderCMO, Red Dot Design
customer experience
14 min
Written by Daniel Luecke
Customer experience management (CXM) aims to create positive customer experiences and interactions with a company. But how exactly do you implement a targeted corporate strategy for more satisfied customers and, above all, across all touchpoints of the customer journey?
Customer experience management (CXM) has established itself as an integral part of successful corporate strategies, as customers today expect more than just product or service quality.
They want consistently positive and consistent experiences across all touchpoints in order to build and strengthen an emotional bond with the company. According to Microsoft, CXM comprises a combination of strategies, processes and technologies that aim to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty by consciously designing every customer experience.
In addition, a recent study by Sprinklr shows that companies that invest in CXM achieve an average of 20% higher customer loyalty and significantly increase their sales. In highly competitive markets, CXM is therefore no longer a nice-to-have, but a decisive competitive advantage to stand out from the competition and secure long-term growth.
This article gives you a comprehensive insight into the basics, methods and practical examples of CXM and shows you how you can implement CXM throughout your company.
Interactions between customer and company along the entire customer journey. It is not just about collecting and analyzing customer data, but about actively creating positive customer experiences in order to exceed customer expectations.
CXM includes digital channels such as websites, apps and social media as well as physical contact points such as stores or events. The aim is to seamlessly network all channels in order to offer customers consistent added value at all times.
An outstanding customer experience has a direct impact on a company’s sales and growth. According to IBM, 73% of consumers say they are willing to pay more for a product if the customer experience is positive.
In addition, research by PwC has shown that companies with first-class CXM can achieve up to 10% higher sales growth, as satisfied customers are more likely to buy again and make more additional purchases.
Satisfied customers become valuable advocates for your company. They share positive customer experiences in social networks, which leads to network effects and reduces acquisition costs. A study by Nielsen shows that 92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family more than any other form of advertising.
The customer journey describes a customer’s path in five central phases:
The analysis of all touchpoints is essential for optimizing the customer journey. Important steps:
A successful CXM approach requires all teams to be clearly focused on the customer internally. This includes:
Leadership and change management
Managers must act as role models and actively promote CXM. Change management processes help to reduce resistance and achieve long-term acceptance.
Modern CXM tools increasingly rely on AI-supported data analysis to automatically search through large volumes of data and recognize patterns in customer feedback and usage data. Machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) are used to uncover semantic correlations so that the needs and wishes of individual customer segments can be identified at an early stage.
On this basis, the systems generate proactive recommendations for action, which you can use to trigger personalized measures before problems escalate. The AI-supported analyses also make it possible to dynamically update individual customer profiles and thus trigger targeted campaigns or service interactions.
This not only optimizes standard processes, but also allows you to set up automated workflows that, for example, give priority to VIP customers in the event of problems or make targeted use of upselling potential. Overall, data-driven insights ensure that CXM is not only used reactively, but above all proactively and with foresight.
Key figures are essential for making the success of your CXM initiatives measurable and continuously improving them. Without valid data, optimization approaches remain vague, while clear KPIs provide concrete recommendations for action. In this section, you will learn about the three most important metrics that will help you to strengthen customer loyalty and perfect the customer experience.
The Net Promoter Score measures your customers’ willingness to recommend you to others and is considered a measure of customer loyalty. Customers are asked on a scale of 0 to 10 how likely they are to recommend your company to friends or colleagues.
A high NPS indicates that numerous customers have become promoters who actively make positive recommendations. Through regular surveys and segmentation by product group or region, you can easily identify which areas of your offering are popular and where there is still potential for optimization.
The Customer Satisfaction Score measures satisfaction after a specific interaction – such as a support case or a purchase process. The surveys are typically conducted directly after the contact in order to obtain immediate feedback. CSAT questions are formulated very specifically and allow you to identify problem areas with pinpoint accuracy. The regular collection of CSAT values clearly shows you in which processes you should improve the customer experience in order to increase overall customer satisfaction.
The Customer Effort Score measures how much effort a customer has to put in to achieve a certain goal – for example, completing an order or reporting a complaint. A low CES score means that your service works smoothly and customers don’t have to invest much time and energy. Studies show that low effort directly correlates with higher customer satisfaction and loyalty, as customers quickly feel frustrated by complicated processes. By minimizing the effort for your customers, you create a positive user experience that pays off in the long term.
Every CXM strategy faces specific challenges that need to be overcome in order to achieve the planned effects. Two key hurdles are overcoming data silos and ensuring sufficient resources. With well thought-out solutions, you can successfully break down these barriers.
A common problem in large companies is the fragmentation of customer data in different departments. Marketing, sales and service often use their own systems, meaning that a holistic picture of the customer journey is lost. Open APIs, central data platforms and an end-to-end data strategy help to break down data silos and consolidate all interactions in one place. This gives you a clear overall picture that allows you to seamlessly support customers across all channels and address them individually.
CXM requires investment in technology, personnel and training. To convince decision-makers of the necessity, a well-founded business case argumentation helps: Show how optimizations increase ROI by increasing customer satisfaction and reducing churn. Plan realistic budgets for pilot projects and measure initial successes early on in order to release further funding. This will ensure that the CXM initiative is equipped with the necessary resources in the long term.
The world of customer experience is evolving rapidly. New technologies are opening up innovative touchpoints and improving interaction with customers. Two trends that you should keep an eye on are virtual reality and conversational interfaces.
VR and AR create immersive experiences in which customers can try out products virtually or experience service processes interactively. Retailers use AR to present furniture realistically within their own four walls, and car manufacturers offer VR test drives. These new touchpoints increase emotionalization and make it possible to present complex products in a vivid way. Companies that cleverly integrate VR and AR achieve higher customer satisfaction and clearly differentiate themselves from the competition.
Chatbots and voice assistants are becoming increasingly intelligent and can process complex inquiries automatically. Using natural language processing, these systems understand customer requests in natural language and provide assisted responses in real time. Conversational interfaces can also be integrated into popular messaging channels so that customers can interact via the channel of their choice. Round-the-clock availability, fast response times and personalized conversations contribute to a consistently positive customer experience.
Today, customer experience management is a strategic necessity for any company that wants to be successful in the long term. By systematically designing all touchpoints, taking a data-driven approach and ensuring a strong internal customer focus, you can create consistent and positive customer experiences. With CXM, you not only secure loyal customers, but also sustainable growth and a clear competitive advantage.
Daniel Luecke
Director Software Solutions
I work together with my colleagues to make our product a little better every day – and to be a partner who helps our customers work successfully with their media and product data.