Customer Experience Management (CEM) is a real trend, and the chief evidence of this is the rapid adoption rate of Chief Customer Officer and Chief Customer Experience Officer.

Companies today recognize the importance of creating a positive customer experience, from the moment the customer comes into contact with the company and is undecided to when the customer reaches a fork in the road and is considering leaving. Companies can no longer buy customer loyalty and assume customers will stay. It is easy for customers to “click away” and buy from another vendor.

CEM is now a formal program that involves multiple processes and departments. It requires the mapping of customer touchpoints, and combines operational and CRM data with customer service and marketing information.

Organizations that have a great CEM program have been able to increase sales and revenue from repeat sales, customer rescue, cross sells and up sells.. They discover better operational efficiencies and revenue from happy customers. However, if companies go about CEM on a superficial level, they can create a branding train wreck. Customers are savvy and quickly see through hollow statements about customer satisfaction.

Any organization can benefit from CEM, but the prime candidates include companies that have a large customer base and one that can easily switch to another supplier. Also, companies that sell direct to customers rather than through channels are better candidates.

CEM in today’s business world is just as important as measuring customer satisfaction was 20 years ago. CEM has become more formalized, and customer satisfaction is only a small component of CEM. In addition, CEM can now be measured the same as accounting and financial metrics.

In fact, there is a movement to watch companies that are doing it right.  Stock analysts and traders are tracking companies with good CEM and finding that their stock performs better than others. This posting from Bruce Temkin’s Customer Experience blog provides some insights on this.

CEM is a trend that is here to stay. Smart companies are using technology to monitor and improve the customer experience, which translates to increased revenues and profits.