Hank Brigman’s Customer Experience Management (CEM) Glossary

Customer Experience Definitions

Featured Definitions:
 

Touchpoint. Definition: Each interaction – physical, communication, human and sensory – with and within your organization.

Customer Experience Management (CEM). Definition: The discipline used to comprehensively manage a customer's journeys with your organization, product, brand or service in the efficient creation of value for both customer and organization.

 

360-degree review.  Definition: Performance-appraisal data collected from 'all around' an employee his or her peers, subordinates, supervisors, and sometimes, from internal and external customers. Its main objective usually is to assess training and development needs and to provide competence-related information for succession planning not promotion or pay increase. Also called multi-rater assessment, multi-source assessment, multi-source feedback.  Source: www.businessdictionary.com

B2B. Stands for: Business to business

B2C: Stands for: Business to consumer

Brand/Offering Position Map.  Definition: Tool to map the position of product/offering pricing and quality and to compare Brand/Offering Position alignment with Experience Position (see Experience Position Map).

Brand Identity. Definition according to David Aaker: How the brand wants to be perceived in the market – your desired perceptual asset.  

Brand Image: Definition according to David Aaker: How you are perceived in the marketplace.

Call time. Definition: A metric used in call centers to measure the average time of a rep’s calls.

CCO. Stands for: Chief Customer Officer

CD.  Stands for: Compact disc

CEM. Stands for: Customer Experience Management.  
Definition: The discipline used to comprehensively manage a customer's journeys with your organization, product, brand or service in the efficient creation of value for both customer and organization

CEO. Stands for: Chief Executive Officer

CSAT. Stands for: Customer Satisfaction

Customer Experience. Definition: Primary steps along a customer journey, e.g.

• Marketing campaign
• Sales meeting
• Ordering process
• Accounting process

An experience is made of individual customer touchpoints.

Customer Journeys.  Definition: The holistic engagement of the customer with a business on a relationship and transactional level.  A journey is made of individual experiences.  There are three types of customer journeys:

• Relationship Customer Journey.  Definition: The macro journey of universal stages that covers the life of the relationship.
• Transactional Customer Journey.  Definition: Subset of the Relationship Journey that can happen once or repeatedly as the customer goes through the purchase process along a journey that is unique to the organization.
• Value Add Customer Journey.  Definition:  Adds value beyond, or in addition to, the product or service.  Examples include obtaining education/training, engaging in social networking, attending a special event like a holiday party, etc.

Customer Touchpoint. Definition: Each interaction – physical, communication, human and sensory – a customer has with an organization.

ESQi. Stands for: Enterprise Service Quality index of Enterprise Rent a Car

Experience Position Map.  Definition: Tool to map the position of customer experience policies and touchpoint execution and to compare Experience Position alignment with Brand/Offering Position (see Brand/Offering Map).

Experience Strategy. Definition: What the organization seeks to accomplish through positioning of both service policies and the execution of customer touchpoints.

Exploratory Research. Definition: Investigation into a problem or situation which provides insights to the researcher. The research is meant to provide details where a small amount of information exists. It may use a variety of methods such as trial studies, interviews, group discussions, experiments, or other tactics for the purpose of gaining information.  Source: www.business dictionary.com

Factor. Definition: A non-touchpoint customer consideration (e.g. price or location).

First Call Resolution & Talk Time.  Definition: In customer relationship management (CRM), first call resolution is properly addressing the customer's need the first time they call, thereby eliminating the need for the customer to follow up with a second call. Talk time (the average time an agent spends on each call) is a common call center performance metric. In general, fast talk time averages are desirable. However, fast talk time averages accompanied by poor first call resolution rates are a sign that customer calls are not being answered satisfactorily.
Call center managers carefully monitor follow-up calls because in addition to being an indication of customer dissatisfaction, follow-up calls create an overall increased call volume which, in turn, requires more agents. In general, a call center manager will accept an increase in talk time, as long as the first call resolution rate increases as well.
Source: www.searchcrm.com

Gantt Chart.  Definition: Type of bar-chart that shows both the scheduled and completed work over a period. A time-scale is given on the chart's horizontal axis and each activity is shown as a separate horizontal rectangle (bar) whose length is proportional to the time required (or taken) for the activity's completion. In project planning, these charts show start and finish dates, critical and non-critical activities, slack time, and predecessor-successor relationships. Also called chronogram, it was invented in 1917 by the US engineer and a scientific-management pioneer, Henry L. Gantt (1861-1919).  Source: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/Gantt-chart.html

GEMS.  Stands for: Singapore’s Go-the-Extra-Mile-for-Service program

HR.  Stands for: Human Resources.

Identity Pyramid™.  Definition: A hierarchal structure of an organization’s foundations.

IVR.  Stands for: Interactive Voice Response  
Definition: An automated telephone information system that speaks to the caller with a combination of fixed voice menus and data extracted from databases in real time. The caller responds by pressing digits on the telephone or speaking words or short phrases.  Source: www.pcmag.com

Kaizen.  Definition:  Japanese term for a gradual approach to ever higher standards in quality enhancement and waste reduction, through small but continual improvements involving everyone from the chief executive to the lowest level workers. Popularized by Mosaki Imai in his books 'Kaizen: The Key To Japan's competitive Success.'
Source: www.businessdictionary.com

Kaizen Event/Blitz. Definition: a period during which a group of managers and workers work together to solve a problem or improve a particular process within a company:
A kaizen event brings together employees to examine a problem, propose solutions, and implement change.  Source: www.dictionary.cambridge.org

LCV.  Stands for: Lifetime Customer Value.  
Definition: The value of a customer over their lifetime as a customer of an organization or brand.

Listening Post.  Definition: Any point along a customer journey where the organization collects customer or employee feedback.

Macro metric. Definition: The primary metric used to measure the health of your customer relationships.  e.g. Net Promoter Score®

NPS.  Stands for: Net Promoter Score® (Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld).  
Definition: A macro metric based on the single question, how likely are you to recommend…

OpCo. Stands for: Operating company.

Operation Strategy. Definition: Initially defined in your business plan and continued in strategic plans, operational strategies typically cover services or products you offer, how you produce them, where you offer them, how you distribute them, how much they cost, and how and where you market, sell, service and account for them.  The components of your operational strategy typically align with the functional organization of your enterprise, such as manufacturing, sales, marketing, etc.

Regression Analysis. Definition: Statistical approach to forecasting change in a dependent variable (sales revenue, for example) on the basis of change in one or more independent variables (population and income, for example). Source: www.business dictionary.com

RFP. Stands for: Request for proposal.

ROI. Stands for: Return on investment.

Strategy to touchpoint gap. Definition: To realize the full potential of any strategic plan, the strategy must “live” at the touchpoint level.  The gap is getting a strategy implemented across touchpoints.

SME.  Stands for: Small & medium-sized enterprises.

Three Customer-Centricity Competencies™. Definitions: 1. Identity, define and live your identity. 2. Intelligence, right information to the right people at the right time.  3. Consistency, standardize touchpoints.  

The Touchpoint Principle™.  Definition: The ability to get and keep desired customers and employees is enhanced by consistently delivering Valued Touchpoints™ (see Valued Touchpoints).

Touchpoint Infrastructure. Definition: The policies, processes, procedures and systems within which employees and vendors work to develop and deliver touchpoints.

TPIM. Stands for: Touchpoint Principle Implementation Model™.
Definition: A four-step model covering assessing status and needed prerequisites (Assess), developing a comprehensive plan (Plan), implementing a plan that builds the three competencies, solves the core experience problem and achieves the defined identity (Operationalize), and measures success (Measure).  

Touchpoint Economy™. Definition: The macro environment whereby the economy of individual organizations, brands or products is highly impacted by the increasing power of touchpoints encountered and deployed by customers.

Upsell. Definition: Increase the planned or stated purchase of a customer.

Valued Touchpoint™.  Definition:  A standardized interaction that is customer-centric while advancing the organization’s values, identity and strategy, and the touchpoint’s goal(s) (see Touchpoint Principle™).

VOC. Stands for: Voice of customer

VOIC. Stands for: Voice of internal customer

Valued Touchpoint Add/Change Log.  Definition: Tool to capture Valued Touchpoint additions or changes after implementation.

White space. Definition: The space competitors don’t occupy.