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Measuring customer experiences is really about understanding the sum of a series
of touch points, the gestalt of one or several moments of truth that drive an overall perception of the individuals involved and the product purchased or consumed, juxtaposed against the channel engaged and the expectations of the brand. Customer Experience Management (CEM) is how a company manages those interactions with customers. CEM has emerged as a “space” or methodology in retail parlance, as it provides a means to manage and create loyalty, and higher customer lifetime values (CLTV) – where customers buy more goods and services over longer periods of time, positively affecting revenue, profits and margins. By contrast, not managing CEM can lead to increased operational costs as well as negative word of mouth and customer attrition. Social CEM acknowledges that with social media the impact of either positive or negative customer experiences are more immediate, tangible and amplified and as a result, must be integrated in the customer experience management program.
It is an old adage in business that “you can’t manage what you don’t measure”. Many companies do not effectively measure, communicate and hold their front line agents accountable to continuously improve their customer experiences. They may collect customer experience data, but the time and distance from feedback to a customer evidencing any tangible improvement is so long that most consumers who provide feedback do not believe any good comes of it. This is evidenced by Consumer Insights research done by Empathica showing that only 46% of respondents believe that feedback is used to improve the customer experience. This can only be the result of two factors: 1) a lack of transparency and communication from the brand outwards on what the score is and what’s being done about it, and 2) a poor understanding and execution of the improvements needed at the local unit (i.e., store, restaurant, branch, dealership, etc.) level. As a result, the revenue boost and/or cost cutting goals of CLTV have often not been met and customer experience improvements remain an elusive goal in many companies.
Whether taken seriously or not by the executive suite, customer experience metrics have always been important indicators for the success of a company. What’s changed and made customer experience management a vital, bottom-line business initiative in today’s world is that digitally connected consumers are far more vocal about their customer experiences and have a more far-reaching impact than ever before. With studies showing 78% of consumers trust recommendations versus only 14% who trust advertisers’ messages, managing on/offline customer experience has never been more important.
When today’s consumers post information about their customer experience online, they can reach thousands of people in mere seconds. And those posts remain online as a permanent record of customers’ experiences. If, as is often the case, the customer experience is “off”, the company is in danger of not only losing the future revenue of the customers who posted, but also the revenue from hundreds if not thousands of other customers who read about how the brand’s products or services didn’t meet customer expectations and subsequently choose not to buy from the brand. In addition, the lack of improvement in the business can result in increased operational costs dealing with customer complaints, the source of which could have been rectified if recognized and corrected based on ongoing customer feedback.
The rapid adoption of social media and mobility has left most companies organizationally challenged to adopt new approaches in how they design and improve customer experiences and drive customer loyalty and advocacy. Utilizing a systematic approach to Social CEM can provide real-time feedback for the corrections and adjustments required by the business as well as to build an ongoing, online customer advocacy program. Companies can use Social CEM to drive high quality interactions and provide end-to-end customer experiences across all communication channels (online and mobile) as well as in face-to-face (F2F) brick-and-mortar locations such as in retail stores, restaurants, hotels, bank branches and auto dealerships. However, making these changes requires not only a change in how leadership views customer experiences, but also the empowerment of the various functional departments who are being measured by customers to actually make the changes required to deliver exceptional customer experiences.
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The above is an excerpt from the Empathica’s latest whitepaper “Social CEM: Moving Beyond Customer Loyalty to Customer Advocacy.” To learn how to use Social Customer Experience Management to transform your business, download the full whitepaper.