What is CXM? A complete guide to customer experience management.

As a business, you need to provide the right experience at the right time on the right platform if you want to keep ahead of the competition.

Customer experience management, or CXM, is the solution you need to meet customer demands. Every business today is facing the challenge of creating compelling, personalized experiences at scale that separate their offerings from the pack and meet rising customer expectations. Unfortunately, customer experience scores declined by an unprecedented 39% in 2024 — compared to 17% in 2023.

So, if there was a time to learn the ins and outs of customer experience, it's now.

In this guide:

• What is CXM?
• What’s the difference between CRM and CXM?
• 6 benefits of customer experience management.
• Why CXM matters — the business impact.
• Key components of an effective CXM strategy.
• How to build a CXM strategy for your business.
• Choosing a CXM platform.

Customer experience management, also known as CXM or CEM for short, is all about capturing, managing and improving every interaction a customer has with your brand throughout the sales funnel — the journey your customers take from first interaction through to a sale and beyond.

CXM aims to create positive, personalized, and consistent experiences at every touchpoint — from social media posts to online checkout processes, to aftercare emails — that drive customer satisfaction and loyalty. Ultimately, this should spread word of mouth to other customers too.

To do deliver excellent customer experiences, you’ll need to gather and analyze customer feedback and make sure your internal processes are synced and ready to meet customer expectations. On top of this, you’ll need tech and data to fine-tune interactions and make every customer feel like you’re speaking directly to them.

How does CXM work?

CXM uses tools and software to track, analyze, and improve customer interactions across digital touchpoints to boost sales, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.

With the rise of digital commerce, in which ecommerce sales comprise 16.4% of total retail sales at the end of 2024, customers increasingly expect online experiences to have a similar personal touch to what they might experience in a physical store.

Effective CXM goes beyond just delivering a programmatic display for the pair of running shoes a customer just searched for. Instead, it’s about understanding your customers so deeply that you can meet them wherever they are — for example, not simply with a targeted display ad, but with a personalized email inviting them to a sponsored running event near them. This, in theory, can convert them from one-time buyer to loyal customer.

How does CXM relate to customer experience?

If customer experience management is about the data and strategy, then customer experience is about the interactions behind it. It’s the sum of a customer’s interactions with a brand — whether they’re on the phone with a customer service advisor, using a website, or making an in-store purchase. With the data capture, strategy, and software of CXM behind it, customer experience should tap into the emotions, preferences and pain points of a customer — so they feel valued, seen and satisfied with your brand.

Learn more about customer experience.

By prioritizing CXM, companies can create deeper connections with customers, get ahead of their competitors, and drive business growth.

Done correctly, CXM should help you:

1. Better understand customers. By creating a complete view of what your customer needs and cares about, you can deliver more personalized experiences to their favorite channels.
2. Personalize their experiences. CXM capabilities like intelligent search, product recommendations, and loyalty incentives all help personalize experiences for your customers in ways that build deeper relationships and lasting loyalty.
3. Ensure consistency across touchpoints. Brands exist across many digital and physical spaces. The trick to tying these touchpoints together is consistency — speaking the same language and offering the same service across social, online, physical stores and media.
4. Get customer feedback. User experience (UX) website analysis, customer surveys, social media monitoring, and more can help you learn what you’re doing right and wrong for the benefit of customer experience.
5. Learn from analytics. CXM can help you capture all important data and trends to help you improve your brand and digital experiences.
6. Turn customers into brand advocates. A loyal customer will regularly choose your brand over the competition. But a brand advocate? They’ll help you create more loyal customers, who could become brand advocates too.

Customer relationship management (CRM) primarily revolves around managing and maintaining customer relationships, while CXM places the emphasis on delivering exceptional experiences throughout the customer journey.

Let’s look at the difference in more detail.

CRM.

CRM is about monitoring and improving specific customer interactions. It focuses on capturing and analyzing customer data, managing sales pipelines, and making sure customers have an easy and well-supported experience. It seeks to nurture relationships, drive sales, and increase customer loyalty. CRM systems are designed to streamline customer information, track sales activities, and enhance customer service.

CXM or CEM.

CXM is concerned with the overall experience a customer has with a brand. Customer experience management takes a holistic approach, encompassing every touchpoint from initial awareness to post-purchase support. It uses data and technology to understand customer needs, personalize interactions, and simplify processes across various channels to create consistent and memorable experiences. By prioritizing customer satisfaction and loyalty, CXM contributes to long-term business success.

At the end of 2024, Rick Parrish, VP and research director at Forrester noted that “US consumers are having, on average, the worst experiences in a decade”. According to the research and advisory firm’s CX Index, brands are struggling to connect emotionally with consumers and provide seamless experiences. This follows Gartner’s report that over 70% of leaders responsible for CXM “struggle to design projects that boost loyalty and deliver results”.

While it’s not easy to handle evolving customer expectations and shifting economic sands, it’s nonetheless essential to put your customers first. For Parrish, “customer-obsessed firms grow revenue, profit, and customer loyalty faster than their competitors”.

Let’s go through some of the benefits in a bit more detail.

Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.

CXM places the customer at the center of business operations — prioritizing their needs and expectations and significantly improving their satisfaction levels. Satisfied customers are more likely to become loyal advocates who not only continue to support your brand but also actively recommend it to others. Forrester research commissioned by Adobe reveals that companies with solid CXM in place see 1.7 to 2.1 times greater year-over-year growth in revenue, customer retention, and customer lifetime value compared to companies that don’t focus on CXM.

Increased customer retention and lifetime value.

By consistently delivering positive experiences, you can encourage repeat purchases, cross-selling, and upselling opportunities. A strong CXM strategy helps reduce customer churn, leading to a stable and profitable customer base with a higher customer lifetime value (CLV) for increased revenue and profitability.

Improved operational efficiency.

CXM helps refine internal processes and systems to streamline customer interactions. By mapping and improving the customer journey, your company can identify bottlenecks, eliminate redundancies, and enhance operational efficiency. This leads to smoother operations, reduced costs, and improved resource utilization.

More relevant insights from voice of customer (VoC) data.

A CXM strategy should collect and analyze voice of customer (VoC) data, which includes customer feedback, preferences, and expectations. By actively listening to customers, your business can gain valuable insights into their needs, pain points, and preferences and make data-driven decisions, proactively resolve issues, improve upon their products or services, and create experiences that meet customer expectations.

Deeper employee engagement.

An effective CXM strategy extends beyond the customer-facing aspects of a business and helps foster a customer-centric culture throughout the organization. Engaged employees who understand the importance of CXM are more likely to deliver exceptional service, take ownership of customer interactions, and enjoy a greater sense of purpose in their jobs. This leads to higher employee satisfaction, reduced turnover rates, and improved overall performance.

Regulatory compliance and risk mitigation.

In industries with strict regulations, CXM plays a crucial role in ensuring compliance and mitigating risks. By incorporating customer privacy and security measures into CXM strategies, your business can protect sensitive customer information and mitigate potential legal and reputational risks.

Solid CXM strategy relies on several key techniques, along with solid data and tech to fuel them. Let’s look at some of the key components of customer experience strategy.

Customer journey mapping.

The sales funnel isn’t always linear or straightforward. A customer journey map can help you make sense of it – helping you visualize your customer contact points across the business. Armed with a comprehensive blueprint of the customer journey, you can start tweaking and improving experience at every touchpoint — identifying gaps, patching them up, and finding new opportunities to boost engagement and conversions. Find out how customer journey maps work.

Personalized experiences.

With customer data, you can use marketing personalization tools to target and retarget your audience with resonant, effective messages, offers and content. This can range from technical and algorithmic – such as Spotify or YouTube serving you videos and music based on your behavior – or simply sending out a personalized voucher or aftercare suggestion after a customer makes a sale.

Key to this is creating marketing personas – hypothetical customers of different demographics at different stages of their journey. Having these laid out in advance means you can produce timely, relevant, personalized experiences on demand.

Omnichannel experience.

Customer experience isn’t limited to “online” or “in-person” — it’s more complicated than that. People use different devices, browsers, products, and platforms every day as they work, shop, and procrastinate. Having an omnichannel approach to your customer experience means you can reach your customers everywhere from their inbox to their social media feed. Find out how omnichannel marketing works and create your strategy today.

Customer satisfaction surveys.

Customer satisfaction surveys are a great way to ascertain exactly what you’re doing right, wrong, or just okay, without making assumptions. Net promoter scores are a great way to do this — boiling down complex ideas into simple, effective questions that are easy for customers and businesses to understand.

Generative AI deployment.

Gathering and interpreting customer data from across your business and turning it into engaging, personalized content isn’t easy. When it comes to CXM strategy, AI is ready to be your copilot. It can connect the dots between your touchpoints in moments, automate personalized content in a flash, and deploy it at scale. Find out how generative AI can help boost your customer experiences.

With customer experience quality in the US at “an all-time low”, it’s never been more important to get your CXM strategy right. Here’s how to get started.

1. Determine market segmentation and customer personas.

Identify and segment your target market based on common characteristics, preferences, and behaviors. Create detailed customer personas to better understand their needs and expectations.

2. Fully map the customer journey and coordinate messaging.

Map out the entire customer journey. Coordinate your messaging and content across different touchpoints for a consistent and seamless experience.

3. Build up personas with real-time customer data.

As customers move through their journeys with your brand, continuously update your customer persona data. Use insights from customer interactions to deliver personalized content and experiences that match their behaviors, preferences, and desires.

4. Collect, organize, and analyze relevant customer data.

Gather relevant customer data from various sources and channels. Organize and analyze this data to gain valuable insights into customer behavior, preferences, and satisfaction levels. You can utilize relevant customer experience metrics such as net promoter score (NPS), customer satisfaction (CSAT), and customer effort score (CES) to measure and track customer experience performance.

You’ll also want to connect specific data points to revenue generation to demonstrate the impact of customer experience on the bottom line. This could include analyzing customer lifetime value, repeat purchases, or upselling opportunities.

5. Automate CX processes.

Automate repetitive and manual tasks in your CXM processes to improve efficiency and consistency. Technology can help you streamline customer interactions, data analysis, and content delivery.

A good CXM platform can allow you to centralize and manage customer data from all your sources and channels, so you get a holistic view of each customer. Using advanced analytics and AI technologies, CXM software offers real-time insights on customer preferences, predicts behavior, and optimizes content and experiences accordingly.

CXM platforms may also offer tools for creating and managing content through dynamic content delivery, A/B testing, and rule-based targeting. That way, customers receive messages tailored to their preferences, demographics, and stage of the sales funnel.

With CXM software, you can interact with customers across multiple channels — including websites, mobile apps, social media, email, and more — and keep the experience consistent throughout.

Some CXM software can even help you in the planning, execution, and automation of targeted marketing campaigns. Just define customer segments, automate messaging, and track campaign performance for continuous optimization.

When selecting a CXM software solution for your organization, choose one that can scale up with your business and integrate with your existing tech stack for smooth data flow.

You’ll want to prioritize programs with flexibility and customization options. This can help you adjust workflows, create personalized experiences, and adapt to evolving customer expectations. Choose a platform with a user-friendly interface that simplifies navigation, content creation, and data management. This way your teams can skip any extensive training.

Finally, check that the software provides robust analytics and reporting functionalities that can deliver actionable insights, track key performance indicators (KPIs), and measure the effectiveness of your CXM initiatives.

With a foundational understanding of CXM, its best practices, and the potential of automated CXM approaches, your business is ready to put your customers first.

What is a CXM platform?

CXM platforms are software solutions designed to build effective customer experiences. These platforms offer a range of capabilities that help your business deliver personalized, memorable, and friction-free experiences.

A comprehensive CXM platform will consist of:

• CRM hub. This collects customer data across different channels and touchpoints, ready for you to analyze and act upon.
• Marketing automation software. Get ready to track leads, gather insights and measure success. With marketing automation software, you can streamline everything from content delivery to performance analysis.
• Ecommerce platform. Keep your ecommerce shop streamlined with integrated ecommerce that connects directly to your sales and marketing data.
• Customer service platform. With customer service integration, your CXM platform can guide customers through any problems via external contact centers or AI chatbots.

Things to consider when choosing a CXM.

Can it scale with your organization?

Effective CXM software adapts and expands to accommodate your business’ growth. It should be able to handle increasing volumes of data and customer interactions without compromising performance.

Can it integrate with your tech stack?

Ideally, a robust CXM platform will seamlessly integrate with your existing CRM, marketing automation, ecommerce, and other customer-facing technologies. This gives you a unified view of the customer journey, and a streamlined data flow.

Does it feed in real-time customer data?

Top-tier CXM software solutions process real-time customer data from touchpoints like websites, apps and social media. This gives you up-to-the-minute insights for immediate, personalized responses.

Does it offer personalized experiences?

Leading CXM platforms leverage AI and machine learning to analyze customer data. This means you can deliver highly personalized experiences across all your channels — tailoring content, offers, and support to individual customers.

Does it facilitate omnichannel content?

Strong CXM software creates and delivers consistent, engaging content across multiple channels — from email to social media and beyond. This ensures a seamless and integrated customer experience.

Can you run content A/B tests?

Many advanced CXM platforms include A/B testing capabilities, which allow you to experiment with different versions of content. This means you can optimize engagement, conversion rates, and overall customer experience based on the performance of your creative, messages, and other content.

Things to consider when choosing a CXM.

Can it scale with your organization?

Effective CXM software adapts and expands to accommodate your business’ growth. It should be able to handle increasing volumes of data and customer interactions without compromising performance.

Can it integrate with your tech stack?

Ideally, a robust CXM platform will seamlessly integrate with your existing CRM, marketing automation, ecommerce, and other customer-facing technologies. This gives you a unified view of the customer journey, and a streamlined data flow.

Does it feed in real-time customer data?

Top-tier CXM software solutions process real-time customer data from touchpoints like websites, apps and social media. This gives you up-to-the-minute insights for immediate, personalized responses.

Does it offer personalized experiences?

Leading CXM platforms leverage AI and machine learning to analyze customer data. This means you can deliver highly personalized experiences across all your channels — tailoring content, offers, and support to individual customers.

Does it facilitate omnichannel content?

Strong CXM software creates and delivers consistent, engaging content across multiple channels — from email to social media and beyond. This ensures a seamless and integrated customer experience.

Can you run content A/B tests?

Many advanced CXM platforms include A/B testing capabilities, which allow you to experiment with different versions of content. This means you can optimize engagement, conversion rates, and overall customer experience based on the performance of your creative, messages, and other content.

Is it easy to learn and use for employees?

User-friendly CXM software is crucial for your employees. Look for platforms with intuitive interfaces that require minimal training. This will enable your teams to quickly master the tools and put them to use.

Does it have built-in analytics?

Effective CXM software provides robust analytics and reporting dashboards, offering valuable insights into customer behavior, campaign performance, and the overall effectiveness of your CXM strategies. This data-driven approach allows you to continuously optimize performance.

Adobe Experience Platform is an industry-leading solution that fulfils the expectations of effective CXM. It integrates customer profiles that update in real time, continuous intelligence, and an open and extensible architecture to make personalized customer experiences at scale a reality.

See it all come together for yourself, learn more about Adobe Experience Platform.