Building Customers for Life: Why CEM Must be Part of Your Company's DNA

Building Customers for Life: Why CEM Must be Part of Your Company's DNA

By Anthony Santilli, Chief Customer Officer, Omega Management Group  |  March 05, 2015

Business executives know that key accounts are vital to a thriving bottom line. In fact, the old 80/20 rule of business still prevails today where roughly 80 percent of your business comes from 20 percent of your clients.  Customer satisfaction equals increased revenue, which is why it’s important to determine a baseline evaluation of your current customer experience management (CEM) strategies to offer insight into where improvements can be made to make your business more successful.  In other words, a CEM strategy must be part of your company’s core culture – your corporate DNA.

This evaluation should answer critical questions about engaging employees to drive customer loyalty, using analytics to gain an advantage over competitors, and most importantly, how to win back lost customers.

With the evaluation framework in place, your work begins with a CEM Assessment Strategy to evaluate management views on improving the customer experience. The CEM Assessment should cover the following points:

  • Review BIG4 customer strategy: Acquisition-Retention-Growth-WinBack
  • Interview key executives and management personnel on their CEM knowledge and commitment
  • Review internal customer survey process, results & rating system
  • Prepare account management profile of your entire customer base
  • Segment accounts by annual revenue they contribute: Tier 1/Tier 2/Tier 3 (News - Alert)
  • Segment participants by decision maker, recommender & influencer
  • Identify reporting requirements
  • Engage and reward employees by measuring their customer satisfaction levels and rewarding them (bonus, gifts, etc.) upon achieving customer service excellence.
  • Conduct employee 360 alignment web survey to see employees’ perception of how customers will rate the level of service & support provided

•     Conduct customer satisfaction transaction survey and compare results with employee 360 alignment survey

•     Design stakeholder communications report card to share your CEM results with internal and external stakeholders

•     Provide online CEM professional customer relationship skills training for key management and customer-facing personnel

•     Conduct a Return on Investment analysis that includes measuring the number of new, retained and upgraded accounts, plus the number of lost accounts that were reacquired

•     Conduct executive briefing to assess effectiveness of CEM strategy and results

This assessment culminates in providing a customized plan for your organization. Customer experience management needs to be the nucleus of your company to track, oversee and organize each and every interaction between you and your customers throughout the customer lifecycle.

Without an effective CEM plan in place, you cannot ensure customer satisfaction loyalty.  Why is such a plan so important?  Simple.  Customers – not products and services – are the source of all revenue and profits.  As a result, no organization can maintain sustainable profitability without a structured and measurable plan to consistently exceed customer expectations for service and support.

Anthony Santilli is the Chief Customer Officer of Omega Management Group Corp., which specializes in helping organizations maximize customer satisfaction and loyalty by implementing a CEMDNA Playbook Strategy.  Omega created the NorthFace ScoreBoard AwardSM for recognizing excellence in customer satisfaction and loyalty, and also produces the annual SCORE Conference for customer service executives.


Anthony Santilli is the Chief Customer Officer of Omega Management Group Corp (News - Alert)., which specializes in helping organizations maximize customer satisfaction and loyalty by implementing a CEMDNA Playbook Strategy. Omega created the NorthFace ScoreBoard AwardSM for recognizing excellence in customer satisfaction and loyalty, and also produces the annual SCORE Conference for customer service executives.

Edited by Maurice Nagle
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