Winter 2006

While each organization has its own requirements for a CEM solution, there are common elements that all buyers should seek. I’ve compiled a list of the most important questions to ask when evaluating solutions:

1. Can it scale across my entire customer base and tie into all of my customer touch points?

Customers interact with you through many channels: online, over the phone, and in-person. The building blocks of a strong CEM deployment begin with measuring the delivered experience at every touch point—each interaction—as it happens. Whether the interaction occurs on the web, by phone, or in a store, make sure you deploy a solution that can quickly integrate into any of these channels. Even if you start with a single channel, ensure you have the flexibility to extend your reach to other channels in the future. (Click here to read about determining lifecycle touch points.)

2. Does it enable my entire organization to share a view of the customer experience?

A solution that delivers a single view of the customer experience across departments, such as marketing and customer service, provides groups that often have independent customer initiatives with a common framework to measure their success. By implementing a solution that delivers a single view of the experience, the organization can march towards a common goal.

3. Does it empower employees from across my business to improve the delivered experience?

Many companies leave market research and customer service responsible for the customer experience. While both of these groups have a role to play, all departments must be directly involved and have access to customer experience information. You must ensure that the people who are in the best position to identify and fix problems in the business have the tools and information to do so. Whether it is gauging the acceptance of a new product or understanding why customers abandon an online purchase, plugging the right people in means action can be taken.

4. Does the solution provide a complete view of the customer experience as it is delivered?

The solution must collect and deliver customer, company, and event-initiated customer experience information throughout the organization. Company-initiated or market research information provides an overview of the customer experience. Customer-initiated feedback provides a naked, unbiased view on what customers think about your brand. And event-initiated information collected after a purchase or service call is fundamental in revealing the experience as it is delivered across the customer lifecycle. A complete understanding of the customer experience must include all three approaches.

5. Can you match the employee (internal) experience to the delivered customer (external) experience?

Few will disagree that the employees in a business are critical factors in the success of that business. It is these people that determine how the customer experience is delivered in each interaction, so why not understand the employee’s experience with the company? By having both the customer and the employee perspective on how your company is operating, critical issues can often be identified (and fixed) much more quickly than with just the customer perspective.

6. Can I service individual customers while identifying broader weaknesses in my business?

When asking a customer to tell you about their experiences, you need to be able to do two things with that information:

1. Identify whether individual customers need service, help, or are at risk of leaving the company so you can respond and resolve their issues
2. Look at the aggregate set of experience data to look for trends, weaknesses, and best practices in the organization so broader improvements can be made.

For more information about the questions you need to ask when selecting a CEM solution, email us, with CEM Solution in the subject.