Beyond CRM -- Customer Experience Management

Continuing on our theme from yesterday's blog posting of acquiring -- and keeping -- customers, author Bill Porter of Porter Research has written an interesting article on CEM -- Customer Experience Management. According to Porter, "Customer Experience Management is a multi-dimensional phenomenon including both process and product and differs greatly from earlier simplistic movements like customer delight or the magic three questions to ask customers today. On the process side CEM seeks to measure customer expectations all the way from early customer encounters in the buying process – customer identification and customer acquisition - through support help requests and additional purchases of products and services throughout the customer life cycle (or the customer retention phase). On the product side, key factors like partnership and transparency matter a lot while customers traverse the phases above with a supplier or vendor."

As direct marketers, CEM is key to effectively planning campaigns -- whether they are fueling your acquisition or retention efforts. In fact, we would argue that the three key phases of CEM -- as outlined by Porter-- act as a strategic roadmap for your marketing plan. Paying close attention to your customer segments as they move through these phases will allow you to increase the success rate of each direct marketing campaign, and assist you in reaching your profitability goals.

TGIF!