“CXM equals to the art and science of coaxing lifetime loyalty from daily transactions” - Steve Curtin.

The world of business is constantly undergoing rapid changes, gone are the days of running perennial email campaigns and highlighting your brand capabilities. The dynamic demands of the customer has accelerated the dependence on digital transformation technologies for brands, to successfully deliver standardized customer experience across all channels. Customer Experience Management has emerged as a much sought-after solution for businesses to analyze and address customer needs while engaging with them proficiently.

The advent of Customer Experience Management has marketers questioning whether it is CRM in a new form or whether it is a completely different ballgame miles apart from the age-old CRM capabilities.

In a nutshell, both CRM and CXM complement each other and function together. But before we dive into the details, let’s start from scratch by defining and understanding what CRM and CXM stand for.

CRM: CRM or Customer Relationship Management is a strategy for managing an organization’s relationships and interactions with both the existing and potential customers. A CRM system helps companies stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.

CXM: Customer Experience Management includes both the individual experience in a single transaction as well as the sum of all experiences across all touch points and channels between a customer and a supplier over the duration of their relationship.

Therefore, while both CRM and CXM is customer focused, the difference between the two is the way the information is analyzed, and the tools used to deliver the desired results.

The inter-dependence between CRM & CXM

While the CRM system supports CXM with relevant data to personalize service offerings, the CRM systems do not engage, collaborate, or design processes from a customer’s perspective. CXM, on the other hand, allows the tech-enabled CRM software to implement a holistic customer-centric strategy rather than simply managing customers. In a nutshell, CRM is focused on capturing data, CXM is all about utilizing the customer information at the right time for a consistent customer experience.

Another aspect to remember is customer delight, the role of CXM to complete seamless customer journey equipped with customer knowledge across all delivery channels, CRM utilizes the methods like live chats, email, voice, mobile, virtual agents, SMS alerts to connect with the customers.

While CRM is focused on capturing data, CXM is all about utilizing the customer information at the right time and place for a consistent customer experience. The overall objective, however, is to provide contextual, relevant, and seamless experience across all touch points.

CRM drives CXM strategy

Though CRM and CXM are two different terms, they deliver similar outcomes. Both cater to the expectations and needs of the customers by aligning different products and services. The data stored by CRM software is crucial for CXM initiatives which is focused on personalization with real-time contextual and specific communication, which means, CXM cannot replace CRM as a new software category but can help in resolving the limitations of CRM to deliver right data at the right place to complete the last mile of customer interaction. CRM remains the technology that makes implementation of CXM strategy easier for companies.

CRM OR CXM?

The answer is - Both! On one hand, CRM collects data and on the other CXM analyzes and makes sense of the data by influencing customer experience. Hence, an association of CRM and CXM is the best combination for a business to offer a seamless customer experience. Both the solutions work in tandem and neither can replace the other. While CXM pursues a customer-centric approach, CRM provides a personal touch to address the concerns and problems of customers.

Espire’s CRM services are part of our powerful and customizable Customer Engagement Hub that includes all the key enablers of excellent CX - CRM, Digital Content Management, Experience Design, Customer Communication Management and Customer Analytics. We are uniquely positioned to build comprehensive CRM solution strategies designed to power larger CX goals of businesses. Know more about our service offerings > here or get in touch with us at marketing@espire.com