Customer experience management (CXM) and customer relationship management (CRM) are both strategies companies have adopted in recent years to enhance customer interactions, but their differences and how they relate are often unclear. Both revolve around improving business outcomes with better service, but the way they accomplish this is very different.
If you're wondering what these terms mean and how CRM and CXM can coexist, let's take a look at customer experience management versus customer relationship management.
What Is the Difference Between Customer Experience Management and Customer Relationship Management?
Customer experience management (CXM) is a strategy that focuses on capturing and using data in real-time to orchestrate and optimize customer journeys, creating a positive experience tailored to customers’ needs. They are designed to guide and fix customer experiences in the moment instead of waiting until the end of a journey to improve the next one.
The idea behind customer relationship management (CRM) is to focus on the customer's relationship with the company. It helps businesses understand what customers want and need, build relationships with them and deliver it. Customer relationship management revolves around managing the relationship between the company and its customers. This includes email communication, feedback, loyalty programs, and other initiatives that are aimed at retaining customers.
How CXM Platforms extend CRM functionality and Improve CX Strategy
Customer relationship management systems can be used to improve the existing customer experience (CX) by helping businesses better manage customer needs and expectations, and providing them with a better experience throughout their entire journey of doing business with that company. Companies can pull great value out of their CRMs during the sales and marketing process to aid with this management. But due to heightened expectations, once a customer signs on or purchases a product, there must be specific real-time technologies in place to help orchestrate and adjust journeys in the moment to ensure greater onboarding success, customer retention and satisfaction. A CRM system cannot achieve this without an extension of functionality through a CXM platform, such as CXMEngine.
Customer relationship management systems can be used to improve the existing customer experience (CX). This is achieved by helping businesses better manage customer needs and expectations and providing them with a better experience throughout their entire journey of doing business with that company.
By providing consumers with more information about their products and services, CRM systems help businesses better understand what they are selling, helping them fulfill those expectations. With the use of CRM, businesses can collect data on their customers' behaviors and preferences, then use that information to provide them with targeted content and services.
CRM systems also allow businesses to track the performance of their products and services so that they can adjust their approach accordingly. For example, if a company sells a product that is too expensive for some consumers, or if you know that your customers are looking for a particular product at a certain price point, leveraging on the use of CRM systems can assist in communicating specific offers that will appeal to this targeted group of customers.
In addition, CRM systems provide businesses with the tools necessary for making sure that the marketing messages they send out are received by the right people at the right time. Companies can reach their target audience more effectively while reducing wasted marketing dollars.
All of this functionality primarily leverages CRMs during the sales process, but there is a whole journey of customer interactions after a sale that must be managed or adjusted in real-time to remove friction and optimize customer journeys that CRMs do not address on their own. Is it possible to repurpose an existing CRM and sales tools without leveraging a CXM platform? Of course. But to do so requires custom coding, long timelines and significant monetary investment. And even then it lacks the agility to grow and adjust with your customers and business.
How Organizations Can Combine CRM & CXM Tools to Best Serve Their Customers
CRM tools can help improve customer service and track and hone marketing strategies for these customers. However, in this age of digital transformation, companies must use all opportunities available to create a meaningful, memorable experience for users and customers. After all, today’s consumers are more informed and more digitally aware. When they interact with a brand, the experience they have matters and CRMs have significant gaps in their functionality and ability to provide a seamless experience.
To address these opportunities to connect with these customers, organizations should examine the importance of Customer Experience Management (CXM). A smart CXM tool can be used as a way to manage customer interactions, boost customer loyalty, and improve brand interactions throughout the entire end-to-end customer journey. CXM is meant to give organizations full visibility and control of the customer experience throughout their entire enterprise. It means better experiences and outcomes for both the customer and the company.
The best part? Organizations don’t have to choose between CRM and CXM solutions anymore. The two can work in tandem to offer the best possible experience for everyone and pull even more value from legacy systems than ever before.
The biggest opportunity that comes from aligning CRM and CXM solutions is that it fosters more satisfying customer interactions—and a deeper look at what’s happening with those customers. CRM systems are built to manage and track customer relationships, but CXMs actually connect with all of these customers. In turn, the CXM then analyzes which strategies work best to create these connections.
On its own, a CRM is a focused, siloed approach that is only made more effective by managing and tracking customer interactions in a single platform. Organizations that unite their CRM and other legacy systems with a CXM tool often see increased engagement from their customers and improved customer loyalty as a result.
When brands pair their CRM with a CXM, they get the chance to improve their customer experience and increase customer loyalty through better communication and experiences for their customers. By using a CXM solution that integrates seamlessly with their CRM, organizations can maintain their CRM infrastructure and enhance their existing operations while focusing on creating a more personalized and engaging relationship with customers. The CXM provides a whole menu of new tools that can be used to create even better customer experiences, including:
- Lower operating costs
- Higher customer lifetime values
- Increased net promoter scores (NPS)
- Fewer inbound calls and support costs
- Less customer churn
- Increased employee satisfaction
A CXM system that’s fully integrated with an existing CRM allows companies to organize all of their contacts in one place, access all relevant information at once, and continuously improve the way customers interact with their brand, all without having to re-engineer their existing tech stack.
The Bottom Line
Customer Experience Management (CXM) is one of those buzzwords that is thrown around a lot these days, especially when referencing the B2B industry. But there's a good reason for that. A robust CXM tool can enhance your current operations and manage and improve customer interactions with your brand. By bringing your CRM together with a CXM under a single umbrella that includes all aspects of customer interaction from the first touchpoint to ongoing support and other facets in between, you can better manage customer loyalty and acquisition down the line.
Companies who use a CXM platform to link an increasing number of data silos get a clearer picture of how customer journeys are going, as they are happening. They also benefit from detailed information about how to modify these journeys to lower friction and encourage consumers to become lifelong customers.
Utilizing operational data that is readily available in real-time to drive efficient CX action is made possible with the correct CXM platform. Companies are seeing major economic benefits from investing in the proper CXM platform that harnesses customer data to generate insights and decision-making.
Get in touch with OvationCXM today to learn more about how this could benefit your business.
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