BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - September 9, 2008) - In a unique research study of adoption of
Customer Experience Management programs, Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks
Company (
NYSE:
HHS), examines the business reasons for adoption of Customer
Experience Management programs, the relationship between CEM programs and
greater brand loyalty and brand worth, year-over-year change in customer
retention and customer satisfaction, and how Best-in-Class adoption of
Customer Experience Management programs have improved top-line sales and
bottom-line profitability. This report explains how Best-in-Class
companies have implemented periodic review of customer-facing business
process to maximize the customer experience, programmatically implement a
series of continuous-improvement changes over time, implement agreed-to
metrics designed to measure performance over time, and implement a series
of enabling technologies including Survey tools, a Customer Dashboard and
an Analytics platform that supports a Customer Dashboard across Sales,
Marketing and Customer Service data. To obtain a complimentary copy, visit:
http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=5149.
Data acquired from over 190 enterprises reveal a number of impactful data
points. "At its core Customer Experience Management programs dissect the
customer experience to find the best, most profitable customers, the most
effective leverage points, and then build long-term strategies to grow
those customers. There are a series of company leadership, process,
organizational, measurement and technical factors that need to come
together to make these work. Perhaps most important to the CMO (Chief
Marketing Officer) in 2008 looking to thrive in a challenging economic
environment is the disciplined approach that CEM programs bring to find and
grow profitable customers," according to David Boulanger, Research
Director, Customer Management Strategies at Aberdeen, one of the study's
authors. Boulanger adds, "For those companies expecting a single magic
bullet this program (CEM) is not that. What this program will do, however,
is systematically determine how to most profitably service your most
important customers and then grow your most profitable relationships over
time. CEM programs are journeys, not events."
The report demonstrates a direct correlation between implementation of
Customer Experience Management programs by Best-in-Class customers and
their performance in three critical customer-facing performance measures:
customer satisfaction, customer retention and year-over-year change in
profitability.
End-user customer feedback indicates that customers start by identifying
business processes with the greatest customer impact and segment customers
by profitability and sales potential. As companies gain more experience in
these programs they advance from simply being able to collect data on
customer satisfaction, retention and profitability and move on to
intermediate ands advanced levels where companies actually manage the
business based on metrics which drive sales, marketing and customer service
programs.
In this environment, the contact center becomes a critical component of the
customer experience. "Our research shows that brand worth and equity is
literally made or destroyed with every customer interaction. In this
environment, the contact center agent is the essential hub between the
digital customer with a need and specific product, customer service,
engineering and other named individuals that need to be linked together to
address a topic," says Boulanger.
"What has also been surprising," he said, "is the growth of internal
customer service websites into externally facing customer destination sites
complete with Wikis, Blogs and other Social Networking tools. It is no
surprise that a good number of global CPG, Consumer Product and Retail
companies perform a major amount of product development using Social Media
technologies as part of CEM programs."
A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the
following underwriters: Avaya and Aspect Software. To obtain a
complimentary copy, visit:
http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=5149.
To access all of Aberdeen's complimentary research please visit
http://research.aberdeen.com.
About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market
intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more
than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely
positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating
demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment
analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets,
corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.
As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in
context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's
analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of
Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement -
Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role
Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit
Aberdeen
http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more
about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to
http://www.harte-hanks.com.
© 2008 AberdeenGroup, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
451 D Street, Suite 710
Boston, Massachusetts 02210-1928
Telephone: (617)854-5200
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com
Contact Information: Media Contact:
David Boulanger
Aberdeen Harte-Hanks
(617) 854-5396
David.boulanger@aberdeen.com