This is a re-post of an article about CEM from some time ago. It's updated, upgraded, and contains some good news. This particular blog is going to be actively posting with very practical and highly useful articles starting on January 15, 2012. Yes, yes, I know...you're thinking, "Isn't it about time?"
The new enrichments will include actual case studies to complement best practices and procedures with respect to customer attraction, customer retention, customer upselling, customer loyalty and getting customer referrals. If you play your CEM cards right [how trite], you will build irreversible, consistent growth. And your sales and marketing team will be multiplied in its effectiveness by those customers who will come to be your most powerful and credible representatives!
---------------
Welcome to a brand new blog. I'm delighted to have you here.
One of the greatest challenges to most business leaders and managers is to develop superb client or customer service. In tech-speak, this whole "science" (I actually think of it as more of an art) is called Customer Experience Management, or CEM. This entails several functions:
1) Acquiring and welcoming new clients or customers;
2) Providing excellent, attentive, "in-touch" client or customer service, continuously and consistently;
3) Following up with the client or customer, and engaging in a friendly, purposeful relationship -- and being thankful;
4) Converting your clients and customers into referral sources to increase your access to new "pre-heated" clients and customers. A direct referral is generally better qualified and is more likely to conduct business with you -- this is likely because your existing customer has already bridged the credibility gap (through a personal endorsement of your organization's likeability and trustworthiness), and because the newly-referred client or customer has already formed a favorable preliminary opinion of your organization based upon an endorsement from a mutual friend;
5) Thanking your existing customer for his or her kindness, faith and implicit compliment in providing you with a wonderful endorsement in referring a new potential relationship to you.
Sounds simple? Of course. It's just common sense -- but most businesses get it all wrong. Your mission, entrepreneurs, thought-leaders, managers, salespersons, marketers, account executives and other "people persons," is to:
1) Create a strategic plan for CEM and implement it;
2) Monitor, measure and maintain that plan;
3) Tweak and improve the plan as necessary.
We'll be talking about this again soon. Please come back.
Thank you for visiting with me.
Faithfully,
Douglas E Castle,
Practical Pictorial Example:
