Think you know what customer experience management is? Think again.
Beyond Philosophy’s 2011 Global Customer Experience Management Survey shows CEM can be a real differentiator for service providers, but the industry risks being “misunderstood into extinction" because the term is being used to describe too many things.
For example, the study says “CEM" is being used for re-branding projects that have little to do with the customer experience. Other “risk factors" include failure to take account of customers’ emotional viewpoints; limitations in adoption of true CEM; and the time it takes to execute a CEM program.
“78 percent of CE executives were redeployed with no background in the practice. Additionally, customer experience is being used as a buzzword, with many CRM programs being re-branded as CE," said Steven Walden, senior head of research and consulting, Beyond Philosophy. “Emotions account for more than half the typical customer experience, thus proper CEM must consider emotions in order to deliver any significant value."
Top industries like telecom, banking, retail and IT spend significant resources on CEM – comprising nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of the CE market – but customer experiences with these organizations remain largely poor.
Beyond Philosophy hopes the results will help companies understand CEM in a way that helps to differentiate their products and services in the face of increasing commoditization. The study also sought to establish benchmarks for which regions are most CE-centric, which industries are most CE-active, which companies allocate the most resources to CE, where growth potential is greatest and which companies are most admired by CE leaders.
The regions with the highest allocation of resources to CE are North America and the United Kingdom. Yet, the need for a clearer understanding of CE means there are significant growth opportunities in these regions.
The study says that among telecoms, the five companies allocating the most resources to customer experience are Vodafone, Sprint, AT&T, BT and BSkyB, in that order.
