[November 21, 2000]

Not Just Another Acronym: Why Your Company Needs CEM (Customer Experience Management)

BY GENE FERRUZZA

The business world has never been afraid to use acronyms. From ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) to TQM (Total Quality Management), keeping up with the latest acronyms is just as difficult as keeping up with the latest trends they represent. CRM, which stands for Customer Relationship Management, has taken a leading position among the common acronyms used today. In its purest sense, CRM describes the processes and applications used to manage customer interactions at various touch points, including the call center, the Web, direct mail, and via a sales force.

Unfortunately, the term has become highly overused and vague. Companies are trying to take advantage of the momentum of this exploding market and are expanding the breadth of the industry. The reason for this expansion is clear: the term "CRM" implies a broader scope than it actually permits. Many tools are used to help organizations manage their customer relationships. Some ancillary tools include data mining packages and campaign management systems. However, as back office tools, these sets of applications do not qualify as true CRM tools; they do not directly manage customer dialogs and transactions, which is the basis for building customer relationships.

The Difference Between CRM And CEM
In order to circumvent much of the confusion around the actual scope of CRM, a new acronym is generating a lot of discussion: CEM, or Customer Experience Management. Moving beyond single interactions, CEM describes the processes and applications that manage the entire customer lifecycle. The process in totality involves, but is not limited to, customer service, brand awareness, mass advertising and marketing, direct and database marketing, point of sale (POS) and sales processes, operational dialogues with customers like collections, billing and installations, and all other interactive communications. Synchronizing the messaging across these different touch points, providing a continuous experience across them, and having a comprehensive, consistent customer view across all media are the foci of CEM.

The evolution from CRM to CEM is clear. Today's consumer is likely to be comfortable transacting and communicating through many different channels, and companies must be prepared. It was not long ago that the customer service center existed almost exclusively to answer customer questions and solve customer problems. Now that call center reps are armed with the latest in intelligent call routing (ICR) technologies, call scripting applications, and customer data, they are able (and often expected) to add value to the process through targeted messaging, product up-sell, and loyalty infusion. Today, whether interactions are taking place on the Web, through e-mail, direct mail, or via a salesperson, each interaction represents an opportunity to instill loyalty, learn more about the individual customer, and present the customer with information, products, and services that leverage the learning gained from each of these dialogs.

Call Centers Are The Core Of CEM
Few touch points are as affected by this evolving role as the call center. The call center is still the hub of CRM activities in many organizations because it provides a real-time, two-way human interaction. In addition, the call center can perform a range of operations: problem resolution, transaction management, product cross-sell, and more. Reps must have the tools that provide them with the proper environment to effectively manage each customer interaction. Fortunately, there are many vendors that provide powerful call center solutions, enabling each rep to maximize every interaction with customers.

However, the use of CRM tools isn't simple. In fact, the technology environment surrounding these tools can be daunting. They require dedicated databases. They have rules engines that provide the proper script or display the proper data. They also have data capture mechanisms for retaining customer responses to questions or offers. Though the technologies used to manage these interactions span from the latest in Web-based technology to monochrome legacy systems, the best-of-breed systems all have components that enable and empower call center reps to have value-added interactions and dialogs with the customers on the other end of the phone.

Similar technologies exist on the other touch points as well. Web sites utilize the latest in content delivery tools to fill "slots" on Web pages with the information most relevant to the site visitor. e-mail blasters use the latest in personalization and HTML to produce personalized e-mails. Sales force automation (SFA) tools can now connect disparate sales forces together via wireless and mobile client/server systems.

Each of these systems fits within the guise of CRM. And each of the systems is built with strong technology layers that utilize databases, rules engines, and data capture mechanisms.

Overcoming Channel Silos
The natural evolution of these touch point-specific technologies has led to the creation of "channel silos." Silos, independent departments and customer views, occur when companies build entire organizations around a specific facet of the business. For example, it was not long ago that companies built "product silos." Each product line within an organization would have its own customer data repository, its own billing department, its own marketing department, etc. These silos frustrated customers who were treated differently by the disparate product groups and received redundant or inconsistent messaging. Data warehousing (consolidating all customer data into a complete cross-product view) and data mining (understanding the complete value and relationship of the customer through data analysis) overcame this organization trend.

However, the advent of CRM has caused a similar situation: "channel silos" now replace "product silos," and a complete channel-view of the customer does not exist. The implications affect both the customer and the organization.

The customer experience, which consists of all customer-to-business interactions, becomes inconsistent and lacks continuity when crossing channels. Few things frustrate a customer more than an experience differing in quality and content from one channel to another. Disparate CRM strategies at each channel can lead to highly disjointed customer experiences, since the channels have no memory or recognition of the customer relationship and interactions across other channels.

There are solutions to overcoming the proliferation of channel silos within an organization. In fact, many vendors in the CRM space are augmenting their product offerings with cross-channel solutions. As the CRM landscape moves to multi-channel customer management, the space of CEM comes to life.

Making CEM A Reality
CEM applications and processes share data across touch points and centralize business rules that describe interactions that are appropriate between the company and the customer. This way, all interactions, independent of channel, are consistent and continuous. In addition, it is critical that the entire organization, regardless of product or channel roles, has access to the same, holistic customer view so intelligent dialogs can be managed at any point of contact. Imagine an environment where the call center rep can discuss an interaction a customer had on the Web site moments ago, or discuss the contents of an e-mail that was recently delivered. CEM makes that scenario a reality.

This CEM infrastructure is made up of the following:

• The front end CRM applications (including, but not limited to, the call center, the Web, e-mail, sales force automation, direct mail, ATM/kiosk, and branch/POS).
• Data repositories including back office (data marts, operational data) and CRM application-specific data repositories (call center databases, Web click stream repositories).
• Analytic systems.
• Rules engines, including campaign management systems and CRM application-specific rules engines.

The challenge, then, is how to integrate each of these components into a seamless infrastructure and harness the full power of each. The key to successful CEM lies in achieving the following four goals:

1. Provide the essential data elements necessary to consistently manage the customer experience at each touch point. These data elements should include relevant transactional history, recent behavior at all touch points, marketing information, and propensity information.
2. Centralize the business rules that describe the desired customer interaction scenarios and make them available to all touch points. This produces a consistent message to each customer at every touch point.
3. Leverage best-of-breed CRM systems to manage the channel-specific environment necessary to the dialog. in a call center, this includes call routing and transaction management; on a Web site, this includes site access authority and Web page look and feel. Each channel has unique challenges, and the CRM systems should be used to manage the environment while providing interaction support based on centralized business rules.
4. Develop an enterprise-wide strategy for building customer relationships with a scope encompassing customer acquisition, retention and growth. Using the first three goals, make the strategy effective during every customer interaction.

Achieving these goals will bring your company Customer Experience Management success.

Gene Ferruzza is the president and CEO of YellowBrick Solutions, a provider of Customer Experience Management software technology through its open, Visitant platform. The platform assimilates call center, marketing automation, sales, Internet and wireless systems with back office applications, databases, and analytic tools. The Visitant platform delivers instantaneous, targeted, communications across all channels, resulting in increased customer loyalty and improved profitability.