In today’s dynamic landscape of business with manifold business niches and their respective audience focus on the overall shift in the customer purchase journey right from the moment when they know about a product till the end of the consumer purchase decision process which is currently inclined more towards the balanced use of online shopping and offline shopping or getting service rendered where such substantial changes have occurred in a very short span unlike the retrospective scenario of business where mainstream business practices involving customer visit a shop by seeing a advertise on billboard of a product initially and there by visiting a brick and motor store within their proximity.
As client service expectations continue to evolve businesses are dwelt with challenges resulting in the use of more effective ways that would meet such needs while fostering long-term brand and loyalty.
This is where Customer Experience Management (CEM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) have crucial roles in both client acquisition strategy and customer retention management in the long term. By integrating CEM with CRM businesses will be able to get a broader perception about what are the necessities and pain points of a customer during their entire purchase journey.
Some face trouble in communication or contacting the company and for some, it may be the product line pricing, value or worth, and even the suggestions for customization of anything that they purchase. Without an active CRM to understand the customer experience platform with a company or the entire online/offline shopping journey the company won’t be able to give any personalization and tailored services that best suit their customers. Let’s deeply understand each topic.
What is Customer Experience Management (CEM)?
Customer Experience Management (CEM) refers to the process of anticipating, emphasizing, overlooking forecasting, and thereby optimizing every interaction with a customer right from the initial point of contact till post-purchase support. It’s CEM that focuses on understanding the customer’s purchase journey by understanding each step involved in it and thereby delivering a positive and streamlined approach during each step within the entire purchase process. This involves collection, cleansing, and analyzing data thereby getting actionable insights to predict customer needs, offering relevant solutions, and resolving issues before they escalate. A well-devised CEM strategy can help businesses build trust and loyalty which will improve customer satisfaction and ultimately lead to successful customer retention management , long-term brand loyalty and advocacy.
Customer Experience Management (CEM) is a comprehensive approach to overseeing and optimizing every interaction that a customer has with a business which focuses on creating a cohesive and personalized experience across all touchpoints. It involves management of the end-to-end customer purchase interaction which begins from initial awareness of a brand or a product till consideration and further leads to post-purchase and after-sales and service interactions such as after-sale service and so on. This ensures that each moment aligns with the customer’s expectations and needs which gives value to the overall product or service rendered. CEM is rooted in understanding customers’ needs, preferences, emotions, and behaviors, allowing businesses to anticipate and meet demands effectively.
What is Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategic approach that companies use to manage and analyze interactions with existing and potential customers throughout the customer lifecycle which is an approach to strategic decision-making regarding customer satisfaction. One of the important functions and features is the collection of customer data including communication and history regarding interactions, consumer purchase behavior, preferences, and feedback apart from the basic data. CRM systems are designed to streamline these processes by providing a centralized platform where sales, marketing, and customer service teams can collaborate efficiently.
CRM is not just confined to the storage of customer contact information but encompasses a plethora of information that covers the entire consumer life cycle and their relationship with a particular brand or company so that it helps in the consistent communication flow between each other from the initial lead generation strategy to post-sale support and loyalty management.
The consolidation process helps the company have all the customer data on a single platform or a single system where CRM provides businesses with a comprehensive view of each customer, enabling personalized interactions, targeted marketing, and proactive customer service. For instance, the sales teams can use CRM data to tailor their message to align with the customer’s specific needs or preferences during the purchase phase while marketing teams can segment audiences and deliver personalized campaigns that resonate with each group.
Moreover, to manage direct interactions CRM systems offer powerful analytics tools that help businesses forecast sales, track key performance indexes, and identify trends in customer behavior. The CRM systems’ marketing and analytics collect, process, and analyze vast amounts of customer data from its customer database platform to provide KPIs and insights that businesses can use to improve decision-making and personalize customer interactions thereby driving growth.
These tools help companies understand customer behaviors, trends preferences, and engagement across various touchpoints, which are critical for developing effective marketing, sales, and service strategies. These insights enable businesses to make informed decisions, improve customer retention, and drive revenue growth. Many modern CRM systems integrate with social media platforms, email marketing tools, and e-commerce software platforms, thus creating a unified ecosystem for client relationship management across various channels.
CRM also facilitates collaboration within organizations between various departments by providing visibility into the customer journey. Customer service teams, for example, can access past interactions or purchases, allowing them to resolve issues more quickly and deliver a more satisfying experience. Ultimately, CRM helps businesses build stronger and longer-lasting relationships with customers by fostering better communication which is consistent with each interaction and purchase where personalizing interactions helps in delivering value at every stage of the consumer life cycle.
How the CEM and CRM are combined for better customer retention management
When the concept of CEM is coined with CRM the CRM data complements the CEM platforms in increasing rich experience for the customers across all touch points. The goal of CEM is to foster emotional connections with customers by anticipating their needs, responding to their preferences, queries, and suggestions, and delivering an experience that meets or exceeds their expectations which ultimately leads to customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy. CEM and CRM work together to deliver a comprehensive strategy for establishing and maintaining both customer relationships and the overall experience.
While Customer Relationship Management (CRM) focuses on accessing and tracking customer data, interactions, and sales transactions CEM software or technology goes further by managing the emotional and experiential aspects of the customer journey where separate tools are required where it uses data collected by CRM software.
In practice, CRM systems store information about your customers such as purchase history, contact details, and interaction logs. This data gives valuable insights into customer behavior and user patterns on any digital platform where the company has got its presence which CEM uses to enhance the customer experience at every touchpoint.
For example, CRM helps businesses track when and how customers engage with the company, while CEM uses that information to ensure that every interaction with the company whether it’s a marketing email, a service call by a call center agent, or an in-store visit is personalized, timely, and are aligned with the customer’s preferences where such streamlined and rich communication are from CRM data obtained initially where it’s used to create personalized experiences that resonate with individual customers.
Meanwhile, CRM also benefits from the feedback and insights gained through CEM to augment customer service, refine marketing efforts, and optimize sales and lead generation processes. Together in short CRM systems provide the backbone of customer data, while CEM ensures that this data is leveraged to create exceptional and cohesive customer experiences across all platforms which leads to higher retention rates and long-term customer loyalty.
How do they work together?
1. Comprehensive Customer Data
- CRM captures and stores vast amounts of customer data which comprises personally identifiable information of customers, purchase history, communication logs, and behavioral data. This helps in the segmentation of customers and helps in profiling them. This further helps the business match each customer with the category of products/services within the overall niche of the customers.
- CEM leverages this data obtained to understand how customers are interacting with the brand across multiple channels like email, social media, in-store visits, apps, websites, etc., and assess the quality of those interactions. Such quality is assessed based on such criteria which include Data Completeness and Accuracy to check missing data or any anomalies, data consistency in a database for standardization and cleansing, Data Relevance which is used for Customer journey mapping, Data Privacy and Security, Data Integration, etc.
2. Personalization of Customer Interactions
- CRM helps businesses keep track of customer interactions and transactions across all touch points for personalizing future communications. For instance, in the case of a customer retention strategy knowing a customer’s previous purchases enables the business to know the details of the previous order and can aid CEM strategy.
- CEM takes advantage of this data from CRM for personalization further by optimizing each interaction for maximum satisfaction. It uses CRM data to ensure the tone, timing, and content of customer interactions are tailored to individual needs and preferences using personalized recommendations, support responses, or proactive engagement.
3. Improved Customer Journey Management
- CRM focuses on the management of customer relationships from a transactional perspective such as tracking leads, sales opportunities, and customer service requests. It provides a clearer and much broader view of the customer lifecycle which helps teams nurture leads and manage service interactions.
- CEM further complements CRM by managing the customer journey holistically. It looks at the emotional and experiential aspects of the customer’s relationship with the brand and helps to resonate with them. For example, CEM tools can identify points in the customer purchase journey where customers might be dissatisfied and provide insights into how to improve these experiences it requires CRM data which may consist of data such as product likes, product pricing feedback in the form of comments under the product catalog of the websites and the search engines, product rating, product shares and referrals, affiliates, etc.
4. Feedback Loop Integration
- CRM tracks customer service interactions, helping companies resolve issues and maintain records of complaints, support requests, and follow-up actions. It enables teams to monitor the efficiency of customer support and grievances during wrong delivery or product quality issues.
- CEM platform here integrates the data from CRM as it tracks the customer feedback in the form of support requests and follow-ups which are sourced through a variety of methods and platforms such as comments, ratings, surveys, reviews, emails, or social media, giving businesses a deeper understanding of customer sentiment and satisfaction.
5. Proactive Engagement and Predictive Analytics
- CRM systems help in predictive analysis where they store historical data, enabling businesses to forecast future customer behaviors, sales opportunities, and engagement patterns.
- CEM adds predictive insights into the customer’s emotional engagement with the brand. By analyzing behavioral data, CEM tools can suggest proactive engagement strategies to enhance the customer experience, such as offering help at critical moments or sending personalized offers at just the right time.
6. Omnichannel Consistency
- CRM supports the management of customer interactions across different channels (phone, email, social media), ensuring that the customer’s history is easily accessible irrespective of the point of contact.
- CEM ensures that the experience across these channels is consistent and cohesive. For example, a customer who interacts with a company via its mobile app/ or its official website should have the same high-quality experience as one who walks into a physical store. Where such experiences can be delivered both in-store and online using personalization and recommendation as the business knows their customer when they collect and store their data on CRM software which helps in devising CEM strategy and CEM tools.
7. Enhanced Customer Retention and Loyalty
- CRM provides insights into customer activity that can be used to drive retention strategies, such as follow-up emails, renewal reminders, or loyalty programs.
- CEM works in tandem with CRM to enhance customer retention by ensuring that each interaction throughout the customer’s journey contributes to a positive experience. A well-managed customer experience boosts loyalty, encouraging repeat purchases and long-term relationships.
Some Benefits of Combining CEM and CRM
When businesses successfully integrate CEM and CRM, the result is a more holistic and personalized approach to customer engagement. Here are some key benefits:
- Increased Customer Satisfaction: With a better knowledge of customer needs and preferences, businesses can deliver a more personalized experience with CEM and CRM tools.
- Improved Customer Retention: Satisfied customers are more likely to remain loyal. By using CRM, it can collect vast customer data and perform various analyses for purposes of streamlining communication, marketing and sales automation, integration of data from all touch-points, etc. and this further helps in improving customer experience across all points of contact.
- Higher Revenue: Personalization and proactive engagement increase sales. The integration of data collected from CRM supports CEM for purposes that comprise upselling, cross-selling, or targeted marketing, businesses can drive higher revenue.
- Enhanced Brand Loyalty: Positive customer experiences build trust and foster long-term loyalty. By consistently delivering great experiences across all touch points/points of contact such businesses can turn customers into brand advocates who are more likely to refer others as they are satisfied both in terms of products/services and the ease of communication.
Top CRM tools 2024 rating as per Forbes Advisor overview
| Rank | CRM Software | Rating out of 5 |
| 1 | Zoho CRM | 4.8⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| 2 | Salesforce CRM | 4.3 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| 3 | monday.com | 4.3 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| 4 | Apptivo | 4.3 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| 5 | Agile CRM | 4.2 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| 6 | HubSpot | 4.1 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| 7 | Bitrix24 | 4.1 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| 8 | HoneyBook | 4.0 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| 9 | Nimble CRM | 4.0 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| 10 | Salesmate | 4.0 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| 11 | Zendesk Sell | 3.9 ⭐⭐⭐ |
| 12 | Pipedrive | 3.9 ⭐⭐⭐ |
| 13 | Freshsales | 3.9 ⭐⭐⭐ |
| 14 | Insightly | 3.9 ⭐⭐⭐ |
| 15 | SharpSpring | 3.9 ⭐⭐⭐ |
Top 5 CRM as per pricing and features according to Forbes
1.Freshsales
Freshsales is a sales force automation platform for sales teams and departments. It has an array of features that a salesperson needs which range from attracting quality leads to driving deals with AI-powered insights and nurturing customer relationships thereby helping customers throughout the purchase journey and sales pipeline. With built-in email, phone, chat, and telephony, Freshsales empowers sales teams by automation of sales process and increasing efficiency and productivity in their routine sales task.
Some of its features are as per Freshsales:
a. Activity Timeline
Helps to understand customer’s engagement with the company with a chronological view of their interactions across all touch points inclusive of website, app, and more.
b. Chat Campaigns
Helps to create personalized messages on chat with trigger-based campaigns. It enables generation helps lead qualification and reduces chat drop-off with custom chatbots.
Pricing
Entry-level pricing starts at $9
Mid-tier Plan – $39
Top tier Plan – $59
2. Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM system is a versatile and cost-effective CRM solution designed to help businesses streamline sales, marketing, and customer support departments. It offers a variety of tools that allow businesses and corporations to manage tasks ranging from leads, track deals, automate routine tasks, and engage with customers more efficiently.
One of the key features of Zoho CRM is its customizability which enables businesses to adapt the platform to their specific workflows and requirements, making it a good choice for companies of all sizes. Another important features of Zoho CRM are its multichannel communication capabilities. It helps businesses to interact with customers via email, social media, phone, and live chat supporting interoperability of platforms. This helps in effective collaboration within the team and maintains consistent communication.
Some of its features are:
a. Lead Management
Lead management involves capturing, tracking, and nurturing potential customers (leads) through the sales funnel until they are ready to make a purchase. Here Zoho CRM helps to capture leads from the landing pages which are hosted on WordPress, Unbounce, Joomla, and other CMS platforms without typing a single line of code which makes it a best option as a lead management system and platform.
b. Deal management
It is a crucial feature within Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems that help businesses track, organize, and manage sales opportunities from anywhere right from the initial stage to closure. It involves forecasting and emphasizing the entire sales and selling process, from identifying potential deals, generation of leads continuing further to negotiating terms, and finally closing the deal.
Zoho CRM’s advanced filters and sort functionality help to quickly locate deals that meet the criteria of a business so that it helps to make better decisions and actions. Moreover, if a company has diverse products or services or the company has different sales processes. Zoho CRM lets to create distinct sales pipelines that can be customized with the different stages to suit your sales process.
c. Contact Management
Helps to store and manage customer information, including contact details, accounts, and opportunities. Helps to manage customer communication including live chat, calling prospects, send emails all within CRM.
Pricing
Entry-Level Paid Plan – $14
Midtier Plan – $23
High-tier Plan – $40
3.HubSpot
HubSpot CRM is a popular and user-friendly yet robust CRM platform designed to help businesses manage their sales, marketing, and customer service, all in one unified system. One of HubSpot’s standout features is its CRM which is free to start with and offers essential tools to businesses irrespective of size of business which provides seamless scalability with tier-based pricing. HubSpot is particularly well-known for its ease of use and integration with its powerful marketing and sales hubs. Some of its features are free CRM, free live chat online, , ai content generator , website builder, etc.
Pricing
Entry- Level Paid Plan – $15
Midtier Plan – $800
High-tier Plan – $3,600
4. monday.com
monday.com is a highly flexible work operating system (Work OS) that is designed to plan, track, and manage projects, workflows, and tasks across various departments. This CRM is recognized mainly for project management but also provides a comprehensive CRM solution that allows businesses to manage their customer relationships, sales pipelines, and workflows all in one platform. It is known for its visually intuitive, drag-and-drop interface, which makes it easy to customize workflows, track progress, and collaborate across teams. Some key features include Email sync & tracking, Email composition, Mass emails, Activity management, etc.
Pricing
Entry-Level Paid Plan – $12
Midtier Plan – $17
High-tier Plan – $28
5. Salesforce
Salesforce CRM is one of the leading cloud-based CRM platforms which is designed to help businesses of all sizes to manage and optimize their interactions with customers, streamline processes, and drive growth. Salesforce provides a comprehensive suite of tools that help companies track sales, manage customer data, automate marketing campaigns, and improve customer support services.
Its cloud-based infrastructure enables teams to access and update customer information in real-time from anywhere thereby fostering collaboration and ensuring that customer interactions are informed and consistent. Salesforce integrates with thousands of third-party applications through its AppExchange, which caters to diverse business needs. Its AI-powered Einstein analytics helps predict customer trends and behaviors, allowing businesses to proactively address customer needs and improve engagement.
Some of its key features are:
a. Contact management
Contact management is an important CRM function that helps businesses collect organize and store important information about their current and potential customers. This comprises of email addresses submitted online, phone numbers gathered in meetings, or websites and social media profiles available online.
b. AI (artificial intelligence)
Salesforce AI is a suite of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and capabilities built into the Salesforce platform. It leverages machine learning and natural language processing to enhance customer experiences, improve sales productivity, and drive business growth. It comprises Einstein Prediction Building, Einstein Analytics, Einstein Bots, Einstein Language, etc.
c. Salesforce Engage
The salesforce engage feature helps to share the marketing content with sales to enhance the company’s selling power. It bridges the gap between sales and marketing. It provides real-time sales alerts and notifications as per the engagement with the customers.
d. Sales Collaboration
The sales collaboration feature allows the sales team to collaborate with powerful social tools in Salesforce. It also helps to find the experts for sales, share competitive data among the team, etc., to grow the business from anywhere. It allows the sales teams to work together on various sales opportunities and check progress from anywhere.
The following are the pricing options of Salesforce:
Entry-Level Paid Plan – $165
Mid-tier Plan – $330
High-tier Plan – $500
Some of the popular CEM platforms:
1.HubSpot
HubSpot’s Customer Experience Management (CEM) tools majorly focus on supporting businesses to deliver personalization, seamlessness, and engaging experiences throughout the customer journey. Although HubSpot is best known for its powerful CRM platform yet somewhat pricy it also integrates various CEM functionalities across its Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, and CMS Hub. These tools help businesses to manage interactions with customers across all channels which ensures that every customer touchpoint whether its email or social media every such point of contact is optimized to enhance customer satisfaction, retention, and loyalty.
2.Live Agent
It is a customer support software that plays a key role in Customer Experience Management (CEM) by enabling real-time communication between businesses and their customers. As part of a CEM solution, Live Agent helps companies deliver personalized, timely, and efficient support, which enhances the overall customer experience. With various solutions it consists of instant assistance through live chat, ticketing systems, email, and social media, Live Agent ensures that customers can reach out to businesses at their convenience, receive quick responses, and have their issues resolved effectively.
3. Zendesk
Zendesk is a powerful customer service and engagement platform that helps businesses deliver personalized and streamlined customer support through various communication channels. It is popular for its helpdesk and support capabilities but Zendesk also offers powerful tools for Customer Experience Management (CEM) which allows businesses to manage, improve, and optimize every interaction a customer has with the brand across their entire journey. There are several CEM features, such as a help desk, ticketing system, knowledgebase, support forums, thus helps in better customer retention management .
Wrap Up
In conclusion, enhancing Customer Experience Management (CEM) with CRM ( Customer Relationship Management ) is essential for all businesses that seek to build and maintain lasting relationships with their respective customers. The integration of CRM ( Customer Relationship Management ) data with CEM software helps to deliver customer-centric strategies and approaches and can deliver personalized, seamless, and consistent experiences across all touchpoints. This comprehensive strategy helps in customer satisfaction , better customer retention management and loyalty but at the same time helps companies to anticipate needs, address issues proactively, and create meaningful engagements that resonate with customers.
