Customer experience management (CXM) is a broad term that refers to a company’s entire interaction with the customer, including before, during and after the sale. It also encompasses service quality as well as post-sale support or service. In this article, we consider the 3 challenges of CXM and how to overcome them for small businesses and how critical CRM is in achieving this.
CXM is one of the most important aspects of a business. A positive customer experience leads directly to increased sales and loyalty for your brand or product. However, one bad experience can cause customers to take their business elsewhere or even cost you future business because people share their bad experiences with their friends. In the era of discerning customers and their ability to research businesses and products more easily than ever before, every interaction with customers and prospects is vitally important.
1. Gathering Customer Data
You can be the best at your job, but if you don’t have the right tools in place to help you do it, then you’re going to come across challenges when it comes to customer experience management. You will have trouble collecting customer data and analysing it effectively. This is why having effective tools to support CXM such as a CRM (customer relationship management) is so important for businesses as it helps them achieve their customer experience strategy goals quicker and more efficiently. It really does work in pulling back the curtain on customer behaviours and supports businesses in gathering useful customer data.
The first step towards ensuring that your team has access to these essential tools is figuring out exactly what their needs are. For this process to go smoothly, there are some questions that need answering first:
- What type of analysis does your team need?
- Do they need reporting capabilities?
- How often would they like reports generated?
- Are there any specific types of reports they require or prefer over others?
When you are looking at improving customer experience, it’s important to consider your entire customer lifecycle. You want to know what information is available and how it can be used in your efforts and where there may be gaps. It’s for this reason, we believe by not having an effective CRM strategy is the main challenge to CXM. Once you have decided on the type of data you want to collect Caldere Associates can create a bespoke CRM package designed specifically for your business.
2. Time Spent Setting Up Your CXM
Once you have your solution installed, it’s time to start using it. But before you can reap the benefits of a new CRM solution, there are some preparations that need to be made. You don’t want your team spending all day setting up their new software and falling at the first hurdle as they have not implemented it correctly. We will work closely with you and your team to ensure a smooth transition between your old system onto your brand-new CRM solution. After all, the more time you spend on set up, the less time is spent actually creating delightful experiences for your customers. This can lead to less revenue from sales or missed opportunities altogether if no one has time to spot these problems in the first place!
3. Insufficient Tools and Technology
This is the most obvious problem, but one of the easiest to solve. For example, if a call centre agent has no way of accessing information about their customers (such as how many times they’ve called in or what services they use) they won’t be able to deal with customer concerns in a timely manner or build relationships with their customers over time.
Having an automated tool such as a CRM allows agents quick access to all this customer data without having to search through multiple systems. This will allow agents more time for communication and relationship building, which ultimately leads back around to providing better experiences for customers and increasing loyalty. Adding more data into the CRM will also support businesses in tailoring their approach with customers and nowadays customers love nothing more than a personalised service.
Customer experience is more than just the interactions you have with your customers. It’s about how they feel about every aspect of their journey with your business, from initial contact to ongoing relationship development and even post-purchase support. As organisations increasingly focus on the challenges of CXM, they need to ensure that their systems are capable of supporting these efforts by providing a seamless customer experience across all channels and contact points.
At Caldere Associates we can support you in implementing a bespoke CRM solution. We would love to hear from you and arrange a discovery call to talk about how we can enable your business to grow.
Let’s start a conversation, here.
