Tags: CEM, CEO, CRM, Customer Experience Management, Customer Experience Optimisation, customer interaction, customer loyalty, Customer Relationship Management
Over my coming series of blog posts I hope to delve into new developments in CRM – not least its new tag, CEO – while looking at interesting and exciting developments around social media, in businesses and the public sector, and anywhere else it pops up that catches my eye.
CRM has evolved over the years and continues to do so as customers, technology, business and markets change. In the early 90s we had ‘opportunity management systems’ or ‘contact systems’, and a number of other technologies claiming to manage the data companies gathered from their customers.
These started to get bundled into suites of Customer Relationship Management products, bringing control of the connection between sales, service and marketing teams to one place. CRM was all about streamlining a company’s internal customer processes, trying to save on costs internally, and keeping the use of data efficient and purposeful.
Now though, we’re seeing a number of new technologies and concepts that have been slowly brought into the CRM fold through evolution, creating a completely different beast from that which it was originally. Driven by increased competition and the need for loyalty, improved and more accessible technology and the change in attitude towards both customers and employees, CRM is bigger and better than ever before. Customers now have more choice than in many cases they even know what to do with.
Today, we can optimise the experience that our customers have when interacting with us online (directly or indirectly via social media), face to face or on the phone, encouraging loyalty and strengthening companies for the future by listening and acting accordingly. It’s now more ‘CEM’ – Customer Experience Management – than CRM, with the true leaders moving towards ‘CEO’ – Customer Experience Optimisation.
This is obviously great news for the customer, but it’s good for businesses too – we’re forced to look at our internal processes to increase productivity and make processes cost effective, whilst exceeding customer expectations through listening to how they want to interact with us and responding accordingly.
There are a number of drivers for the new CEM/CEO, and I hope to delve into each of them. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic, so please do leave a comment!
Hi,
My thought is that CRM has many potential orientatoins or “flavors” that denote the actual Relationship we as sellers have with our customers. Their are several keys driving these flavors, including the players (users, contacts, customers, etc.), the processes (sales, marketing, service), the interactions (appointments, opportunities, etc.) to name a few. I tend to see something like CEM/CEO as putting a spin on traditional CRM, further defining the “flavors” in a manner that optimizes results, hopefully for both parties. As a result, Analytical CRM finds its way into the picture as well so that at any point in time it is possible to derive somewhat objectively where the relationship stands.
Some of the best Business authors have repeatedly written that it is in the best interest of both parties in such a relationship to see to it that an optimized result is attained. Stripping profits from your suppliers will only result in stripping services in return, at the extreme terminating the relationship due to bankruptcy or similar. On one hand, is there business that as a supplier you’d rather not sell; let my competitor have this one. From the reverse perspective, I was told many years ago that a smart procurement agent doesn’t evaluate on price alone. Optimized relationships assume that everyone is in business for the long term, therefore I tend to see CEO/CEM pushing the assumption that businesses must evaluate peformance in a manner that is customer and relationship specific; fully rounding out the Management of CRM beyond a more simple, process based orientation.
Thanks for your comment Mark; I completely agree that CEO / CEM is about evaluating performance in a customer and relationship specific manner is vital for a successful business.
Just as personalisation is the growing trend in the consumer world, that’s being reflected in the world of business too, and any salesperson or organisation needs to use CEO to their benefit by heavily targeting their customers. This means listening intently to what they are saying in order to take relationships forward.
That is, as you suggest, where analytical CRM comes in to play, in defining the different flavors of relationship, and the specific treatment each requires.
A truly insightful post!
I definitely see how CRM is evolving into CEO and how this transformation can have significant impacts on both business growth and customer service.
It is evident that customers represent the foundation of our business and that our success levels are directly related to their levels of satisfaction. However, the next building block for your business is your employees and I think that in order to elevate your CEO, you must ensure that your employees’ needs are met as well. Your employees are your key contact points to your customers, so it is crucial for your company to listen to your employees’ thoughts and opinions in order to optimize the customer experience and truly understand what makes a happy customer.
Once you gather the feedback from your employees, you are then able to fine tune your customer approach to ensure that solid relationships are developed and your entire organization (bottom-up) is satisfied.
Hi Corie,
You make a really interesting point about employees and customers interacting, and I agree it’s very important to hear what they have to say not only for your overall CEO, but also for keeping your employees happy and wanting to work for you.
I’m just drafting another blog post on exactly that subject as it happens – check back here in a few days for it, as I’d be interested to hear your thoughts!