Following CEM framework was presented by Prof. Bernd Schmitt in his book “Customer Experience Management: A Revolutionary Approach to Connecting with Your Customers” which was published in 2004. I have consolidated this write-up based on related articles available for free on internet. Prof. Bernd Schmitt teaches International Business at Columbia Business School. He is also a co-founder and the CEO of The EX Group.

The CEM framework has five basic steps.

Step one: Analysing the Experiential World of the Customer

The first step of the CEM framework provides original insight into the customer’s world. For consumer markets, it is necessary to analyse the socio-cultural context in which consumers operate including their experiential needs and wants, as well as their lifestyles. For B2B markets, we need to analyse the business context including requirements and solutions that might impact the experience of customers. Management must relate broad-based lifestyle and business trends to the usage situations and ultimately to the brand – a process that Prof. Schmitt refers to as “funneling.”

Step two: Building the Experiential Platform

The experiential platform is the key connection point between strategy and implementation. It is not a cut-and-dried positioning statement or a two-dimensional perceptual map with generic verbal labels. Instead, the experiential platform includes a dynamic, multisensory, multidimensional depiction of the desired experience (referred to as “experiential positioning”). It also specifies the value that the customer can expect from the product (the “experiential value promise” or EVP). The platform culminates in an overall implementation theme for coordinating subsequent marketing and communication efforts and future innovation.

Step three: Designing the Brand Experience

After management has decided on the experiential platform, it must be implemented in the brand experience. Whether you are in a consumer or market, the brand experience includes, first, experiential features and product aesthetics that can serve as a jumping-off point for the customer’s brand experience. Next, the brand experience includes an appealing “look and feel” in logos and signage, packaging, and retail spaces. Finally, appropriate experiential messages and imagery in advertising and collaterals, as well as online, complete the brand experience.

Step four: Structuring the Customer Interface

The experiential platform must also be implemented in the customer interface. Whereas the brand experience is largely static (once designed, it remains much the same for some time), the customer interface is dynamic and interactive. Step four includes all sorts of dynamic exchanges and contact points with the customer face-to-face in a store, during a sales visit in a client’s office, at an automatic teller machine at a bank, at the check in desk of a hotel, or as part of e-commerce on the internet. It is important to structure the content and style of this dynamic interaction to give the customer the desired information and service in the right interactive manner. Structuring the customer interface goes beyond CRM, which merely records the history and transaction content of such contacts and provides informational links. The interface design must incorporate intangible elements (for example, voice, attitude, and behavioural style) and address experiential consistency over time and coherence among various touch-points.

Step five: Engaging in Continuous Innovation

Finally, the company’s innovations must reflect the experiential platform – a process Prof. Schmitt calls “engaging in continuous innovation.” Innovations include anything that improves end customers’ personal lives and business customers’ work life, and can range from major inventions to small innovations in the product’s form. Marketing innovations might consist of creative launch events and campaigns.

Innovations demonstrate to customers that the company is a dynamic enterprise that can create new and relevant experiences on an ongoing basis. Innovations can attract new customers; most of the time, however, they build customer equity by helping a company sell more products to existing customers.

Innovations of all kinds need to be planned, managed, and marketed so that they improve the customer experience.

To summarise, the CEM framework consists of five steps. Step one (analysing the experiential world of the customer) is an analysis step. Step two (building the experiential platform) is a strategy step. Steps three through five (designing the brand experience, structuring the customer interface, and engaging in continuous innovation) are implementation steps.

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