Article 1

CEM vs CRM-What is the Fuss all About?

Richard Snow, NACC Advisory Board Member and VP and Research Director
for Contact Centers Ventana Research Richard.Snow@ventanaresearch.com

In a world where three letter acronyms proliferate, is the emergence of CEM just another
marketing ploy invented by vendors keen to sell products in highly competitive markets
or is it something businesses should sit up and take note of. CRM – customer
relationship management – has been around for several years now and is associated
with anything from creating a customer database to driving marketing and sales
initiatives to full blown CRM application suites from vendors such as Oracle and SAP that
promise to take care of managing every aspect of “managing customer relationships.”
CEM – customer experience management – appears on the surface to be very similar in
that it promises to improve the customer experience at every touch point and thereby
keep customers more loyal. Therein lies the issue, both are striving to achieve the same
end result – more loyal customers – so many would say they are one and the same
thing.

The very phrase customer relationship management suggests that organizations should
spend their dollars managing relationships. But how do you “manage a relationship?” Or
even more fundamentally “can an organization and a customer have a relationship?”
Relationships tend to be one-on-one and rely on a continuous dialogue between the
individuals, something which is very hard for organizations to have. So at the heart of
CRM was the concept of “markets of one” where organizations attempt to personalize
every interaction with a customer, a great idea but something very hard to achieve in
today’s mass market place that is more and more influenced by trading on the Web.
Three things get in the way of achieving this ideal:
1. customers interact with many different business units within an organization and more
often than not these don’t share processes
2. in the same way different business units, including the contact center, have different
systems managing customer data, and our research shows that less than half of
organizations make any attempt to synchronizes these different sources
3. customers interact through many different channels of communication and again
there isn’t very much consistency across different channels, with the Web often being
the channel most out-of-line.

This is where CEM comes into play. Ventana Research defines CEM as the set of activities
and processes required to ensure consistency between all interactions with a customer,
to the maximum benefit of the customer and the organization. It relies on organizations
creating and maintaining a single source of the truth for customer data that is kept up-
to-date and consistent across all systems, especially those used to support different
channels of communication. It relies on companies creating a single, 360-degree view of
customers that reflects all interactions and business transactions, across the entire
lifetime of the customer. It requires organizations to review their processes across the
entire organization and ensure these are consistent across different business units, in
turn making sure, for example, that if a customer responds to a market campaign, this is
reflected in any sales transactions, which in turn are carried through into invoicing,
which are also reflected in calls to the contact center and field service visits; and most
importantly making each interaction consistent with the 360-degree view.

All of which means companies need to take a hard look at what and how customer
information is provided to employees interacting with a customer and how each
interaction can be supported in different ways depending on the particular customer. So
CEM is more pragmatic than CRM, with lower ideals that don’t presume any relationship
but works on the theory that more chance customers will remain loyal if every
interaction is consistent and meets their expectations.

Article 2
Customer Experience Management vs. Customer Relationship Management
by Leigh Duncan
Published on January 31, 2006
Read more on CRM, Customer Engagement, Customer Relationships, Marketing Inspiration

I was a bit reticent to take on this topic as the fourth part of this series on Customer
Experience Management (CEM), because in my view it deals largely with perception, and the
complexities thereof.

But here goes.

Many individuals equate CEM with Customer Relationship Management (CRM). I

understand why this is the case—and do believe the original intention of CRM was to focus
strategically on five components of customer experience:

• Customer
• Environment
• Brand
• Platform (systems)
• Interface

While many CRM initiatives attempt to address those components, many assume a highly
operational, quantitative or technical bias. To illustrate this point, ask any executive to
describe the tasks associated with CRM. You'll likely receive answers that align CRM with
activities such as these:

• Establishing/managing a customer management platform

• Installing/configuring hardware, software, systems
• Enabling use of customer management and response tools
• Assessing, consolidating, and organizing (customer/sales) data
• Operationally connecting and synchronizing channels
• Attempting to align internal business process and policies
• Translating programs and campaigns into new toolsets
• Enabling centralized metrics and analytics capabilities

Perceptions about CRM have been partially created by systems integrators, who have served
as active leaders in the development of CRM capabilities. Such firms place a strong emphasis
on technology, data management, quantitative analytics, and operational alignment. These
activities are necessary to lay the groundwork for technology-enabled customer management
and have often overshadowed strategic branding, marketing, program development,
interaction design, and other tasks.
The (operational, quantitative, and technical) perceptions of CRM are also shaped
significantly by historical focus. Over the past several years, CRM efforts have centered on
establishing and refining the infrastructures necessary to enable solid customer management.

The work has been highly operational in nature and involves the resolution of complex
technology, process, and people issues. In the context of establishing these infrastructures,
CRM practitioners have fought many important battles. A large number continue to rage
today and focus on removing internal barriers (human, technology, policy, data, process) that
can compromise customer experience.

Unfortunately, resolving these challenges forces so much attention on getting the corporate
"internal house" in order, that they often compromise corporate efforts to develop, execute,
and measure broad, cross-channel, cross-program, customer-centric strategies and plans.

While many practitioners and CRM consultancies specialize in customer management and
marketing strategy, much of this work is too narrow in scope and execution. Detailed
customer analysis; designing and improving marketing strategies, programs, and campaigns;
developing analytic models and reporting; supporting tactical execution; and other important
tasks often occur as an adjunct to larger, more technical implementations.

The engagements are often too quick or too narrow (e.g., within a single or few departments)
to impact large-scale customer experience or customer centricity within companies. At times,
this work can even be done in a manner that is disengaged from the larger CRM initiative
(e.g., disparate strategies created by different parties), creating disconnects that can hamper
progress on a number of fronts.

Unfortunately, within many CRM initiatives, comprehensive strategic planning activities are
simply incomplete, insufficient, delayed or non-existent. These are some key activities:

• Designing the broad picture for customer experience (CE)

• Designing integrated programs to support CE
• Aligning programs and campaigns with each other and CE
• Developing customer-centric touch management strategy
• Defining companywide, customer-centric, cascading metrics

Failure to engage in comprehensive strategic planning can compromise CRM results and
negatively impact return on investment. It can also create gaps that negatively impact
customers and reinforce a fragmented view of customers.

Insufficient strategic planning and alignment can help explain why it is common to find CRM
implementations that drive benefits within individual programs or departments while larger
benefits remain unrealized. This occurs because of narrow execution results in the absence of
a broad, seamless, measurable customer experience strategy. This is somewhat common
today, and why some critics believe CRM initiatives miss the mark.

Our progress to date may be a natural outcome of CRM (and corporate) evolution. Even so,
the mounting dissatisfaction with strategic outcomes is a key driver in the growth of the CEM
movement. Books and articles on the topic have proliferated. Customer experience has
become a hot topic in industry publications and on weblogs. Gartner's Q4 2005 report states
that four of the top 10 CRM topics are building and managing customer loyalty; creating a
single view of the customer; creating a customer centric enterprise; and managing/improving
customer experience.*

CEM practitioners distinguish themselves by assuming an "outside-in," or highly customer-

centric, approach. This is a direct contrast to the "inside out," or highly operations-centric,
approach found in traditional CRM work.

CEM strategy focuses heavily on conducting detailed customer (demographic, behavioral,

ethnographic, profitability, etc.) and environmental (market, channels, competition)
exploration and analysis. This analysis is used to design broad, detailed, integrated
experience strategies that answer customer needs and market opportunity.

These strategies are accompanied by detailed plans composed of multiple, integrated

programs and campaigns. CEM strategies and plans are used as the drivers that shape product
and service offerings, refine and align customer interfaces, and conform the operational
platform (people, process, technology) for experience delivery, management and
measurement—across channels, and over time.

The terms CRM and CEM are used in a complimentary and, at times, somewhat
interchangeable fashion. Forrester seems to separate CEM as a unique discipline that is
distinct from, but closely related to, CRM. Gartner seems to leverage CEM as a skill set or
practice within CRM. Regardless of the interpretation, analysts do seem to be defining CEM
in a consistent manner (that fortunately aligns with this article).

No matter how you cut it, CEM requires knowledge and skill that is lacking in many
organizations. This is especially true with regard to marketing organizations. **Recent
studies reveal that, while CEOs view the CMO and marketing organizations as critical to
bottom-line growth, many CMOs believe that their organizations are underperforming and
lack the organizational credibility necessary to influence strategic transformation. Gartner
also reports that one of the top, C-level enterprisewide concerns today is that "skill gaps will
impede growth."*

To build new CEM core competencies, create more customer-centric strategies, and
transform businesses, it's necessary to teach business owners how to manage customers and
market differently. The scope of work goes well beyond the marketing enterprise, and must
begin with the development of high-level strategy that can drive a coordinated, cohesive
organizational approach to managing customers.

While it is very common to see this level of strategic and tactical support unaccounted for in
many companies, an increased demand for strategic support in the areas of customer strategy,
planning, and execution is mounting. Gartner predicts that in 2006 the number of
organizations with "single view of the customer" projects will actually double.*

Analysts seem to agree that outsourcing will play a critical role in augmenting missing
strategic skill sets, and helping companies develop more comprehensive plans that drive
marketing, customer management, and customer-centricity to the next level.*

As a result, everyone seems to be jumping on the CEM bandwagon. This includes the
systems integrators, who are developing solution sets (and entire practices) dedicated solely
to CEM. A growing number of agencies and consulting firms are claiming expertise in CEM.
Try a keyword search on Google to see what you get...

In short, CEM practitioners address emerging market needs directly, while attempting to
circumvent current perceptual biases of CRM. Proponents of CEM assert that their
approaches can help remedy many of the issues created by operationally focused CRM
implementations. CEM practitioners argue that their methodologies enable business
stakeholders effectively conceive, own, and manage next-generation customer experiences,
executing them across channels effectively with CRM tools. CEM evangelists promote the
work as having a transformative impact on companies, asserting that the customer-centric
alignment and planning will naturally help focus business effort and drive operational
alignment.

Some CRM practitioners dismiss CEM claims as a glossy repositioning of traditional CRM
methodologies. Others argue CEM methodologies differ greatly from CRM. Individuals with
a philosophical bent may argue that CEM is a "next generation" term that symbolizes a focus
shift in CRM. Individual positions will vary, shaped by personal perspective, approach, scope
of knowledge, area of experience, and objectives.

In my opinion, it doesn't really matter what term you choose. I'm a supporter of CRM and a
proponent of CEM. Using CEM as an umbrella term to circumvent undesirable perceptions of
CRM can be a smart move, depending on your audience. However, when I can help it, I
really try not to get caught up in the overuse of buzzwords and industry acronyms.

Looking back, many of us "old timers" have been trying to get executives to support a robust
customer experience strategy within CRM engagements for years. Sadly, we've suffered from
narrowed scope and limited resources, and we've watched as the lion's share of corporate
investment has been allocated to costly technology implementations and operational work.

Whether you agree or disagree with the perceptions of CRM or the assertions about CEM,
there's good news: Support for broad strategy and integrated customer experience planning is
growing. Operational environments are maturing. Organizations are becoming more open to
customer-centric transformation.

Now matter how you spin the work, helping businesses transform, and comprehensively align
to manage, measure and improve customer experience is the right thing to do. We may
indeed be better positioned to do this today than ever before. If we do our work right, drive
corporate success and make life better for customers. Cool.

Sources: *"Gartner 2006 State of CRM Presentation," 2005. ** B2B Magazine Study:
"Marketing execs still lack boardroom clout," November 2005. Forrester Research (various
articles and article summaries); Wikipedia; About.com; CRM Magazine. Thanks to Amelia
Fox and Ann Duncan for listening and "brain hockey"!
Article 3
CRM, Meet CEM

Just when companies are becoming comfortable with the idea of Customer Relationship
Management (CRM), a new term has emerged: Customer Experience Management (CEM).
The two are similar in many ways, not least in that they are both difficult to define. Neither
can be identified with a unique product or a specific technology; rather, they both comprise a
group of applications, technologies and analytics that orbit around a central premise. The
premises of CRM and CEM are quite different, however, and are best understood when
compared side by side.

The idea at the center of CRM can be stated in the following way: Every time a company and
a customer interact, the company learns something about the customer. By capturing,
sharing, analyzing and acting upon this information, companies can better manage individual
customer profitability.

CEM's premise is almost the mirror-image. It says that every time a company and a customer
interact, the customer learns something about the company. Depending upon what is learned
from each experience, customers may alter their behavior in ways that affect their individual
profitability. Thus, by managing these experiences, companies can orchestrate more
profitable relationships with their customers.

In a sense, this is a classic nature vs. nurture argument. CRM uses profiling, micro-
segmentation and predictive analyses to identify each customer's figurative genetic structure.
CRM thus uncovers the preferences and propensities of customers so that they can be nudged
towards optimal profitability.

CEM, on the other hand, looks at the environment. It gathers and analyzes information about
the dynamics of interactions between companies and customers. This information is fed back
to the company in a self-calibrating system that (in theory) makes optimal use of every
opportunity to influence customer behavior.

Obviously these are overlapping approaches, and both have merit if designed and applied
intelligently. Up until now the spotlight has predominantly been on CRM, in part because it is
technologically impressive (as well as astonishingly expensive). Unfortunately, CRM has not
been nearly as effective as promised; according to some estimates, from 50% to 70% of CRM
initiatives fail to achieve their goals.

As CRM is more widely used, its weaknesses become more apparent. Analysts have become
fond of noting that there is no R in CRM (some go so far as to say there is no C, either). The
idea of a "relationship" with customers seems hollow: CRM is very good at receiving, but not
very good at giving. It asks customers to provide access and information without telling them
what they will get in return. It pigeonholes customers based on past actions without
informing them how to build a more advantageous profile. It prompts customers to become
more valuable to the company without promising greater value from the company.

Furthermore, while CRM is fairly effective at measuring its own successes, it does not
provide much information about its failures. It can record when customers respond positively
to its automated prompting and prodding, but it doesn't give much insight when customers do
not respond in the predicted way. CRM is thus unable to determine whether failures are the
result of faulty assumptions, incorrect information or poor execution. It is also unable to tell
how these "failed" interactions affect the customer relationship; it treats all failures as neutral,
when in fact the fabric of the relationship may have been weakened or undermined by a
poorly executed service encounter.

CEM's strengths lie in precisely the areas where CRM is weak. By focusing on the
experiences of customers and how those experiences affect behavior, CEM examines both the
quality of the company's execution and the efficacy of the result. It aligns customer needs
with the company's ability to fulfill those needs, leading to business relationships that are
mutually beneficial and that both parties - company and customer - are motivated to improve.

So what does CEM look like? At its most basic, a Customer Experience Management system
captures information about individual service events and feeds it back to the organization.
The information can be gathered from customers who provide their impressions of recent
service experiences, as well as from objective observers who record specific details about
service execution (such as mystery shoppers and call monitoring agents). More sophisticated
systems integrate data from both sources so that company standards and execution can be
continually calibrated with customer expectations and impressions. Unlike traditional market
research reporting, which is delivered weeks after the data are collected, CEM systems feed
back information within days or hours of the service event, allowing employees and
managers to make small, effective adjustments on an on-going basis.

Capturing and integrating data about service execution and customer impressions is
important, but it is only the first step. These data need to looped back to training and
coaching content so that knowledge and performance deficiencies among employees are
directly and continually addressed. Furthermore, CEM programs may extend the linkage to
employee and manager incentives. Thus, front-line employees and supervisors continually
receive feedback, training and rewards linked to their day-to-day interactions with customers.

Finally, a comprehensive CEM program also incorporates key metrics related to customer
behavior and profitability, such as retention rates, average purchase amounts, store sales,
complaint and resolution rates, etc. The strength of a CEM system is in its ability to
continually align company performance with customer needs and behaviors, enabling
companies to make small, day-to-day adjustments as well as enterprise-wide changes.

Peter Gurney is the Managing Director of Kinesis. Peter Gurney can be reached by calling
206-285-2900.
 Article 4
Customer Experience Management
By

Prakash Chandra Dash

Senior Lecturer
Bhubaneswar Institute of Management and Information Technology
Bhubaneswar

If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth
is very powerful.
-
Jeff Bezos –

Abstract

The customer experience is central to the corporate goals. Delivering a relevant,

personalised, and consistent customer experience can, for instance, improve customer
satisfaction, across every customer touch-point. Accelerating the delivery of new brands,
messages, and promotions to customers enhances market agility. In addition to these,
delivering a consistent customer experience across world markets and languages is
essential for building a strong global brand.

However, the truth remains that an optimal customer experience is easier to describe
than to deliver. This paper discusses the importance of superior customer experience,
opportunities to explore and developing a customer experience strategy to win over the
customer.

Introduction

When a customer is participating in KBC-2, through Airtel, he can vouch for his
experience from being a customer of Airtel. Watching world cup grand final with Hritik
Roshan, gives a better experience of the world cup. So customer experience is the talk
of the day. Customer experience can be drawn through expertise and providing better
value to the customer. So customer value plays a critical role in shaping the customer
experience. In this regard, significant steps have been taken by companies in their
endeavor to enhance customer value. This has resulted in tumultuous events where
market leaders have suddenly found themselves virtually out of business or struggling
for survival. Today new value creators have been reeling the roost in various sectors. For
example, the entertainment industry has seen single screen theatres that did roaring
business once are now on the brink of shutting down, owing to the enhanced customer
value being offered by multiplexes dotting India's urban landscape. So better customer
value leads to better customer experience. The customer value includes product value,
service value, personnel value and image value. The gap between perceived value and
real value can be minimized through the better customer value.

Experience matters

To define more clearly, managing customer experience at every opportunities to build

brand equity of the service,which leads to sustainable profitability for the organization is
customer experience management (CEM).however we must keep in mind that CEM is not
customer relationship management(CRM).The latter in practice is an information driven
approach to customer analysis and process automation. CEM focuses on delighting
customers at every opportunity and during all interactions,which is online real time and
tough. CEM focuses on the value proposition from customer's point of view and includes
all interactions at various touch points.

Many customers are actually looking for a pleasant experience with the organization at
every touch point at every moment of truth(interaction).Whether a customer is a user of
a mobile phone ,hotel service,banking,airline or travel service ,all that , he or she looks
for ,is a memorable experience .Since every interaction is unique and important,the
customer looks for personalized attention and service in each one of them. Even if one
experience wasn't upto his expectation,it puts him or her down and affects the image of
organization. Hence ,CEM isn't about providing 90 percent and above good service,
experience to customers, and feeling good about it .But, it is about ensuring a six sigma
kind of service to customers, to build a good service image among customers and score
high on customers experience .

CRM vs. CEM

What When How monitored Who uses the Relevance to future

information perform
Customer Captures and At points of Surveys, targeted Business or function al Leading locates
Experience distributes what a customer studies, leaders, in order to places to add
Management customer thinks interaction "touch observational create fulfillable offering in the gaps
(CEM) about a company points" studies, "vice of expectation and between
customer" better experience with expectations &
research products and services experience
Customer Captures and After there is a Point-of-sales Customer-facing Logging Drives
Relationship distributes what a record of a data, moarket groups such as sales, cross selling by
Management company knows customer research, website marketing, field bundling products
(CRM) about a customer interaction click-through, services and customer in demand with
automated service, in order to ones that aren't
tracking of sales drive more efficient
and effective
execution

The Importance of Superior Customer Experience

In product marketing, typically 30% of an organisation's resources and spent on

providing a good customer experience and 70% goes into marketing the same
innovatively. The entire focus is on marketing, to dominate the customers' mind space.
However, in services marketing, 70% of a company's resources need to go into creating
a great customer experience and the balance should be spent on "marketing the
superior experience delivered "among prospects. Once the companies focus is on
creating good customer experience, it automatically generates strong referrals, and word
of mouth complements the 30% spent on marketing the service. Several studies have
shown that repeat purchases have mostly been based on quality of service delivered,
commitments honored, product/service quality, continuous innovations and the
experience with the product/service. The focus is less, and less on price. Customers
value and remember the quality of their interactions with the service providers .The rule
is: higher the quality, higher the positive word of mouth and loyalty from the
customers .In a survey by CRM Guru, positive and memorable experiences with
organizations were found to be the key reason for profit growth.32% of happy customers
said they recommended their service provider to a friend or colleague, and 19% said
they purchased more products and services from same service provider. The bad news
is, negative experiences lead to customer defections and reduced spending on the
service .In the same survey, it was found that while 77% attached importance to
superior product or service by customers to be loyal with the organization,78% attached
importance to high quality interactions with people and systems to be loyal. only 31%
linked importance to lowest price or cost of ownership of the service, clearly outlining
the importance of managing the customer experience better .Lastly,the survey also
outlined how business performance improves with the improvement in customer
experience. Higher the customer experience score, higher the business performance
growth and vice versa. In India leading companies like Taj Hotels, Airtel,Hutch,Jet
Airways,Kingfishers Airlines,ICICI Bank have all succeeded due to their focus on
managing the customer experience well with their services and products consistently.
Though, they haven't reached the six sigma levels in delivering defect free customer
experience.

Opportunities and challenges

However, along with this tremendous growth comes the challenge to the service industry
to live upto the growing demands of customers, who are continuously benchmarking one
experience with another and expecting improved services in every area. Their also
becoming list tolerant to delays and failures in service, and expect every service provider
to deliver world class experience in every interaction. This growing demand for service
excellence also gives an opportunity to every service provider to emerge as leaders in
their chosen field .To date, few companies have optimised this entire create-to-publish
customer experience process. The lack of an enterprise-wide strategic approach
undermines the very objectives that executives are seeking to achieve, resulting in some
important issues or shortcomings. The first of these being decreased customer
satisfaction. Inaccurate, out-of-date, or incomplete customer information prevents
people from understanding companies and their products, and can drive customers
away. The second issue is sluggish market execution. Labour-intensive manual
processes require months-long lead times to roll out brand changes, new products, and
new campaigns, delaying launches and weakening competitive advantage. The next in
the line is brand dilution. Without the capability for centralised control, brands and
messages become distorted as they are altered for the requirements of different touch-
points and diverse global markets. At the same time, another penalty is incurred,
because customer experience inefficiencies increase the cost of each customer
interaction. This can damage the bottom line.

Developing a Customer Experience Strategy

To develop a customer experience strategy, we must first find out what the customers
really want from the service during their interactions with the service provider? It is
called "customer specifications for service" on the service expected. But in our
enthusiasm ,"we should not over specify''.Most customers look for a pleasant experience
(quick service with minimum hassles or procedures) with the service providers and not a
"wow" experience every time. Understanding this thin difference is critical in order to
avoid over specifying and incurring high cost to provide "unnecessary"experience to
customers.

One of the telecom service providers has provided in their showrooms several mobile
related services including one of customers taking their photographs instantly and
downloading in their mobile phones and printing them. Though there are always
customers waiting for their turn at the showrooms to meet the customer relationship
executives, rarely do any of them use the service, since all that they are looking for at a
mobile showroom is quick connection or quick resolution to their problems. They have no
time to spend on all these "over specified" services. Though these over specified services
improve the ambience of the showroom, they don't service the real purpose the
customers are looking for, from these facilities.

It is a good idea to map the customer expectations with service provider at all the touch
points through one-on-one interviews. These interviews will enable companies to
understand "what is really important from the customers' point of view" and what to
focus onto improve the customer experience at the "moments of truth "or interactions.
Once the mapping of all the expectations is done ,then the current service standard has
to be compared with the expectations, to arrive at the service gap and then redesign
the customer experience to be delivered.

The technology differentiator

Technology serves as the key differentiator for most service proviers, as it enables
superior customer experience, to be in telecom, banking, airline or health service
.however, an organisation's ability to use technology effectively to serve customers
depends mainly on the technology readiness of its customers and employees.
Technology per se doesn't excite any one. Only when the technology translates into
customer's and employee's benefits, it is adopted by them easily. Both employees and
customers are ready to embrace new technologies if they help to achieve their objectives
easily and provide an excellent experience.

Top management support

The financial success of an organization today depends on how many satisfied and
delighted customer it has. One of the important functions of CEOs or functional heads in
organizations is to receive, analyse and solve customer complaints and track the
customer satisfaction scores by obtaining feedback regularly from customers .This is a
critical role and the same can't be delegated to lower levels.

Customer feedback and complaints provide ample opportunity to understand the areas of
improvement the organization needs. The CEO and functional heads must be receptive
to customer feedback and complaints and give at least a quarter of their time to go
through and use them to fix the organizational issues. The culture of customers resolving
their complaints by escalating to media or to the top management can avoid if the top
management shows regular involvement in managing the customer experiences.

Once the top management shows personal involvement and commitment to the
customer experience,employees also demonstrate similar or better commitment to the
customers. Top management can't depend on e-mails and lectures to make employees
aware of the importance of customers, but must "walk the talk" by personally involving
in providing good customer experience.

Finally, the bottom line is to recognize that if you want to build customer loyalty through
good customer experience with the organization,it is not enough that you have a good
service, a good product,good technology and a good advertising campaign, but you need
to have a every part of your operations, fine-tune to deliver memorable experience to
the customer every time they interact. That is the ultimate test of customer experience
management.

Conclusion:

In order to drive organisational growth today's C-level executives are working towards
increasing customer satisfaction, improving market agility, and strengthening their
brands across global markets. Till recently these executives used Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) systems to optimise sales transaction processes, but now their
challenges are greater. To reach their goals, executives today are finding that they must
go beyond CRM to create and optimise a comprehensive customer experience strategy.
It is essential to think of the customer experience as the collection of all interactions a
customer has with a company, its products, and its partners, across all customer touch-
points (the channels for customer interaction, such as mobile devices, contact centres,
e-mail, Web sites, flyers, and retail stores). This experience has to be managed across
all geographies, and throughout all stages of the customer lifecycle, from attracting
customers through fulfilment to retention

Reference

Books

• CRM at the Speed of Light. Joseph Pine & James Gilmore

• Mariton, John. Smart Things to Know about Brands and Branding .Mumbai, Indian
Books Distributors Limited, 2000.

Electronic Resources

• The Economic Times Knowledge Series .Times Multimedia,2001(CD-ROM)

• "ET in The Classroom", Times Multimedia ,2003(CD-ROM)

Internet Resources

• www.economictimes .com
• www.marketingprofs.com
• www.businessstandard.com
• www.netmba.com
• www.hbr.edu

Prakash Chandra Dash

Senior Lecturer
Bhubaneswar Institute of Management and Information Technology
Bhubaneswar

Source: E-mail October 21, 2008

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