Customer Experience Management: A Revolutionary Approach to Connecting With Your Customers

In this follow-up to Experience Marketing, the author looks to introduce a framework for implementing what he spends most of the previous book discussing in the theoretical realm. While it may seem an oversimplification for some readers, lacking in the extensive diagrams and charts, the chapters devoted to the five steps are full of case studies and examples of successful companies to illustrate each point across an array of industries (Apple, Amazon, Carnegie Hall, Citigroup, GE, Hilton, FexEx, Nike, Prada, and many others). The framework provides a possible construct to evaluate one’s company.

The book is somewhat dated in that it doesn’t address more recent trends in customer experience such as social networking or the Internet. For example, under the section Structuring the Customer Interface there is a part dealing with interconnecting interface touchpoints, but nothing specific to the Web or social networking. Also, some readers will find the book lacking in tools for implementation such as check lists, charts and templates, but this is more of a high-level guide to the principles of customer experience management and less of an implementation tool. Thus, while the author calls CEM both a “strategy and implementation tool,” in truth he tries to give a framework for implementing, however some may find it more of a case study approach. It also is not a book on ongoing management of the customer experience, despite the title.

In Customer Experience Management, renowned consultant and marketing thinker Bernd Schmitt follows up on his groundbreaking book Experiential Marketing by introducing a new and visionary approach to marketing called customer experience management (CEM). In this book, Schmitt demonstrates how to put his CEM framework to work in any organization to spur growth, increase revenues, and transform the image of your company and its brands. From retail buying to telephone orders, from marketing communications to online shopping, every customer touch-point offers companies an opportunity to maximize the customer experience and establish a bond that will never be broken.

A must-read for senior executives, marketing managers, and anyone who wants to drive growth, increase income, and spur organizational change, Customer Experience Management demonstrates the power of collecting truly relevant customer information, developing and implementing winning strategies, and measuring their results.

Readers can use the CEM framework in developing a methodology for analyzing and developing a customer experience strategy. This book gives a good overview and some examples through cases of what to do and not to do. It will be of interest to executives, consultants and students as a strategy  tool, however the reader might refer to more specific books on how to measure or for developing a tactical strategy and implementation.  For more on these subjects, see the Senteo reviews for The Experience Economy and Customer Experience Strategy.