Customer experience
Customer Experience Management ( CEM ) and Customer experience management is the creation of a positive customer experience to build an emotional bond between user and product or provider. The primary goal of CEM is to turn satisfied customers from loyal customers and loyal customers, " enthusiastic ambassadors" of the brand or product ( "satisfied - loyal - advocate" ). This CEM relies not only on direct impacts, such as willingness to buy, sales or the intensity of use, but specifically also to indirect effects such as word of mouth and referrals. This should ideally be achieved at every point (touch points).
Survey
CEM has the ambition to involve as many points perception of customers - from product development of the initial contact with the seller and the actual purchase to the use and maintenance of a product.
This method is based on the one hand the social science concept of customer satisfaction, which describes the ratio of the customer's expectations for satisfaction of needs (also known as the relationship between expectations and the degree or the disco company Tion Confirmation paradigm. Accordingly, customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction caused by the under-or over-fulfillment of individual expectations of a product or service. Besides the objective quality of a product is thus perceived by the customer quality and performance of the product, the most important component in deciding on satisfaction. on the other hand, provide current psychological theories and concepts for customer loyalty, new approaches for efficient CEM. psychological models based on such findings of psychological research on the optimal pair design of customer relationships and customer experience processes.
Companies that deal increasingly with CEM is due to the strong interchangeability of many products (eg broadband Internet connections ), especially in relatively saturated markets and in sectors with above average strong competition such as telecommunications, financial services and automotive industry. Detecon advises in this connection to " authentic performance promise ."
Since the competing vendors can hardly differentiate on price, see it in a customer-friendliness of the now most important competitive factors. In 2009, showed a survey of 890 decision-makers through the Strativity Group that those companies that have in the past three years increased their investments in CEM, have also had an increase in customer satisfaction.
As an example of success is like the coffee house operator Starbucks called which, although in a decade less than 10 million U.S. dollars on advertising issues, but opened 2,000 new stores at the same time. Explains This success is mainly with viral marketing,.
As a counter- example of this can be a customer imagine the restrictions or even a failure is suspected despite objectively well-functioning communication services of your provider, just because his terminal is not configured correctly. Result would be a decline in customer satisfaction because " something does not work ", which would sooner or later lead to lower revenues. A CEM system would now try to collect these faulty service requests, analyze and provide customer support according to the prepared available. In addition, however, it would be also possible for example to configure appropriate terminals on detection of an error automatically.
Also, a panel study with 287 senior executives in the United States suggests a growing importance of CEM. Thus spoke in 2007 38% of respondents Customer Experience Management a critical role in corporate strategy, compared with 64 % in 2008, this trend is confirmed for 2009 by Forrester. Meanwhile, 89 % of the interviewed company representatives identify CEM as important, or incessantly in order to to be able to differentiate themselves from competitors in the next three years.
For use CEM is primarily in marketing, sales, customer service (see support) and in corporate communications.
Conceptual delimitation
Synonym for CEM are also concepts such as Customer Experience Mapping, " customer journey mapping " or " Service Management " (some of them inappropriately ). Beyond the mere complaint management or mere loyalty programs ( discount cards, Ad-Games, etc.) CEM goes far beyond. A common German translation is the customer experience management.
Compared to CEM, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM ) is defined less about the actual preferences of individual customers, but more from the company's perspective on dealing with customer data such as age, location, preferences, etc. critics of the classical approach see therefore in CRM is a discrepancy between the approach of the company alleged to customer expectations and their actual performances. The use of CEM, however, is more a matter of basic customer orientation of the company.
Conceptually related CEM is with the " relationship marketing " (English " Relationship Marketing " ), which is also dedicated to the development and expansion of long-term customer relationships. In this context, customers are also evaluated according to their potential and capital values ( see also "Calculation of customer value " and " customer lifetime value "). The most profitable customers are then optionally be individually addressed by " Key Account Management". A similar approach to the management consultant Edgar K. Geffroy in the 80s with the concept of Clientings. In the context of process management (English Business Process Management, BPM for short - see business process optimization ), one speaks also of visible and non-visible client processes that can be optimized by BPM. Direct marketing, for example, by Call Center Represents only one possible application aspect for CEM
As part of the Innovation Communication also addresses user- driven innovation (see User Innovation ) communicative exchange processes between manufacturers / suppliers and their customers, for example, the so-called " lead users " who bring both their negative product experiences as well as their constructive suggestions actively. Also, methods such as user observation or innovation toolkits focus on the communicative interface between suppliers and users.
As part of the media and advertising research pursues the Emotional Branding a similar, albeit more methodical psychological approach. So it goes here, for example, the subliminal effect of certain colors of a corporate design (examples: telecom magenta, Coca- Cola red, etc. ).
CEM also makes reference to concepts such as user -friendliness (usability). Scientific CEM is treated within the framework of business administration in particular of the trading and sales psychology, for example when it comes to the evaluation of emotional reactions to surprising, not expected by the customer service forms.
History
Conceptually, it was mentioned for the first time CEM Pine / Gilmore (1998) in an article for Harvard Business Review. Thus, it succeed successful companies that their customers derive personal gains from the most authentic experience with the seller. Various experts such as Thompson / Kolsky (2004), from the consulting firm Gartner have on the increasing importance of CEM and CRM noted several years ago for sustainable business success. A company's ability to bring about positive experiences that really make a difference in the competition from a customer perspective, increases in the opinion of Jessica Debor (2008) not only the willingness to buy customers, but ideally also the " brand loyalty ".
Required for this is especially a good understanding of the customer's perspective. So ask Don Peppers and Martha Rogers ( 2008): "How is it really to be your customer What are the everyday customer experience with your company from How does it feel to be sent on the phone in the waiting loop or a package? open and not knowing how to follow the poorly translated manual? What is it like to stand in line, only to then have to pay a fee? Or to wait for an overdue for two hours recall of customer service? an hour later come back to an empty online shopping cart, and how it feels instead of when one remembers me as a customer, submit me helpful suggestions? If everything is as promised and I can have the confidence that the answers that I get are the best answers for me? "
Measurement / Evaluation
Customer satisfaction and customer loyalty can now reliably analyze, measure and thus compare. The importance of " quantification of CEM measures in the form of ROI or shareholder value Impacts " also illustrate Eberwein and Luyken ( 2009). CEM leg hold exactly those measures by which the gap between expectations and experience of the client let close. An accurate inventory of customer expectations as well as the positive and negative impact of customer experience on sales and costs is a prerequisite here. Only when the product meets those basic requirements, it makes sense to bring about specific positive customer experiences in the third step.
Frequently, the corresponding values are determined by satisfaction surveys. The analysis provides basic elements and metrics for Balanced Scorecard surveys as well as for Customer Relationship Management. The measurement of customer satisfaction is also required as part of the quality management system according to ISO standards 9000. As a reliable way to monitor customer satisfaction, in Germany the research project Kundenmonitor of Germany. Details of the measuring procedure in " components / Procedure " in the contribution to customer satisfaction.