Customer Experience Management under the microscope

A much-talked-about US survey carried out by Bain & Company revealed that 80% of top managers think that their companies offer superior service, while only 8% of the surveyed customers of these companies actually experience this. Very few companies actively manage the customer experience – which is not surprising, because creating an effective customer experience tends to come with a very big price tag.

Sampson Lee, an international expert in CEM (customer experience management) resaerch, created the Branded Customer Experience Management Method. The theory behind this method states that a company should look at the customer’s experience and ask what the company can do to enhance that experience.

While companies formerly focused on satisfying the customer in as many areas as possible, thereby creating a homogeneous experience, Sampson asserts that an effective customer experience consists of highs and lows in the interaction between customer and company.

To create highs in the customer experience, you need to seek those experiences that authentically belong to the brand and really matter to the customer; this is also known as the ‘branded experience’, where brand pledges and brand values come together.

What is interesting, however, is that the experience must also comprise a number of lows to contrast with the highs. Sampson claims that the larger the difference between the highs and the lows, the stronger the relationship with the customer. This method leads to an effective and differentiated experience.

But can we really say that companies that actively implement CEM achieve measurably better results than companies that don’t? To answer this question, TOTE-M is supporting trainee Esther van Hoogenhuijze in the final stage of her Master’s in Marketing at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. She will examine Sampson Lee’s theory, focusing on the difference between the highs and the lows in the ‘customer journey’ (the sum of all touchpoints between a company and its customer) and the effect on the consumer’s purchasing behaviour.