6 Tips for Choosing Guest Experience Management Software

Choosing the right CXM software can help your company to achieve better customer experience management.

Does your company or organization have customer experience management (CXM or CEM) strategies in place (or on the horizon) that include customer experience management software? If so, you’ll want to have the right CXM software to achieve the best results.

What is customer experience management?

“Customer experience management is an approach to relationships with customers that goes beyond just marketing tools and software—with the goal of achieving a digital transformation that truly puts customers at the center of the business,” according to Microsoft.

“A customer experience management mindset prioritizes the orchestration and personalization of the entire end-to-end customer experience and helps to do it at scale, on any channel, in real time.”

Put another way, (CXM) is “the collection of processes a company uses to track, oversee and organize every interaction between a customer and the organization throughout the customer lifecycle,” according to Gartner, which provides guidance and insight to businesses worldwide.

Although customer experience management may overlap with customer relationship management (CRM), the key difference between the two is perspective, according to Gartner. CRM is “what a customer looks like to the company” whereas CEM defines “what a company looks like to the customer,” according to Gartner.

“CEM is a strategy that puts business customers at the center of marketing, sales and customer support in order to drive brand loyalty and repeat business.”

Customer experience management tools typically include the following, according to Gartner:

1. Customer experience management platforms that manage the customer experience from end to end. CXM platforms are based on four components:
2. Customer relationship management (CRM), which draws data from “a variety of channels and touchpoints” so customers don’t need to repeat information.
3. Marketing automation software that streamlines marketing efficiency and eliminates repetitive tasks.
4. E-commerce platform that enables companies to “build an online storefront” that includes checkout, product catalogs and payment processing integration.
5. Customer service communication through omnichannel interactions, including self-service options such as chatbots and product documentation.

“CEM programs heavily rely on the voice of customer programs that quantify customer sentiment about their experiences with a company,” says Gartner. “Over time, a CX management program will adjust elements of the customer experience that generate negative feedback to correct those perceptions.”

6 tips for choosing CXM technologies

When exploring customer experience management strategies or researching CXM technologies as part of your customer data platform (CDP),make sure the software and other technologies your brand uses meet the following criteria, according to Microsoft.

• The technology uses real-time data to enrich customer profiles, bringing together behavioral, transaction, financial and operational data into one real-time customer profile.

“A good CXM system draws in and unifies data access from across disparate locations and lets you capture all those data points in real time,” says Microsoft. “The more unified, real-time, and connected your customer profiles are—the deeper, more actionable insights you’ll derive.”

• CXM technology integrates with your current ecosystem through an “open and extensible” technology platform. “The technology platform should support customer experience apps, a single data model, and an open ecosystem that lets you deliver fresh, innovative experiences for your customers and sets you apart from competitors,” says Microsoft.
• CXM technology “adapts and extends” personalization. “A good CXM system lets you continuously test and optimize personalization in real time,” says Microsoft. “It helps you build standout experiences faster and uses the next wave of intelligent software to deliver personalized content at scale.”
• The technology software allows your company to streamline omnichannel customer journeys, including call centers, brick-and-mortar stores, email, social media, along with web and mobile apps.
• The software has intelligent capabilities that help your brand grow. “Real-time, predictive intelligence and machine learning capabilities are the backbone to any CXM approach,” says Microsoft. “Modern artificial intelligence technologies, like CDPs, are key to help support your present needs and meet your future customer relationship goals.”
• The CXM system helps build customer trust and protects privacy. With the proper CXM technology, your company can build customer trust while protecting sensitive, personal customer information.

“Look carefully at any CXM technology offering for robust capabilities of data privacy and security, as well as offering any help you might need with industry-specific compliance regulations,” advises Microsoft.