Great customer experiences create win-win outcomes for brands and customers.
That’s the core tenet of customer experience management (CXM). It’s the supernova that everything else orbits around and the lens through which we view the world.
As CXM consultants, we help brands create positive and consistent customer experiences across all marketing touchpoints. Why we do it is easy to answer; great experiences make customers’ lives easier, grow brands and inspire creativity in marketing.
The ‘how’, however, is harder to pinpoint.
That’s because CXM takes many forms. “Great customer experiences” are paradoxically easy to see and difficult to define. To deliver them, marketers need:
Clean customer data
Robust martech
Capable colleagues
Agile processes
In other words, customer-centric marketing requires strategy, insight, technology, people and processes working together.
Underwriting all of that is organisational strategy. When CXM aligns with business growth goals, marketing creates measurable and meaningful ROI.
The role of CXM consulting in a nutshell
CXM consultants lend their skills and knowledge to customer experience projects.
This isn’t the type of consulting that borrows your watch to tell you the time. Instead, CXM consulting is practical, results-focused and data-backed.
Our aim is to provide practical, value-adding assistance on several fronts:
Understand customers on a deeper level
Deploy customer-centric marketing operations
Implement scalable martech solutions and automations
Engage customers with personalised, relevant content
Improve customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy
Generate return on marketing investment
Build capabilities in your team
Our ideal outcome is to see our clients become self-sufficient – with the understanding they can always call on us for guidance.
TAP's Platform Audits help our clients focus on delivering consistent customer experiences instead of debugging problems.
If you’re embarking on a new CXM project, adding capabilities, overhauling martech or failing to reach ROI targets, there’s likely a business case for a CXM consultant.
Broadly speaking, CXM consultants provide the most value to marketing operations teams approaching an inflection point.
Why CXM consulting is critical to business success
Business challenge
CXM consulting solution
Proving marketing ROI
Identify relevant KPIs and improve measurement capabilities
Sales and marketing alignment
Designing processes, goals and technology solutions that bridge the gap
Personalising customer experiences
Developing targeting and personalisation strategies, identifying data gaps and implementing technology to automate personalisation at scale
Generating a lead pipeline or converting leads
Identify the most effective marketing channels and implement automations to convert leads
Tracking and measuring cross-channel customer journeys
Map cross-channel journeys, develop data pipelines, integrate software and train teams on data analysis
Identifying and retaining loyal customers
Develop tailored strategies for rewarding customers, reducing churn and encouraging advocacy
Limitations of existing marketing technology
Source a fit-for-purpose martech solution based on gap analysis, and help implement the new software
Under-utilisation of martech tools
Tailored training and ongoing support, including custom development and workflow management
Creating tight, targeted audience segments
Develop segmentation strategies that align with business goals, and implement technology to streamline segmentation
Leveraging customer data to improve campaign results
Implement process and technology solutions to make better use of customer data
Our work with Walgreens in the US is a neatly packaged example of this in action. In a dynamic six-week sprint, TAP, Adobe and our project partners helped Walgreens design, scope, build and test an Adobe Campaign messaging system for COVID-19 vaccination appointments.
In this case, TAP CXM contributed our expertise as project managers and solution architects.
Implementing a new technology
Marketing automation platforms are a significant investment. Gartner’s research indicates that martech accounts for over 25% of the marketing budget – around 2.5% of total company revenue.
CXM consultants provide valuable insights and guidance to help brands invest wisely. Good consultants are publisher-agnostic, helping clients choose the best tools for their goals.
Sometimes, our clients have become used to underperforming systems and don’t even know there’s a better solution. Our work with Specsavers UK is a great case study; TAP’s purview has gradually expanded as we’ve earned trust by optimising data handling processes and developing personalisation workflows.
Another example is helping Shelter UK to overcome an email reporting issue after iOS15 rolled out. When it would have been easy to exclude problem data from reporting, we figured out how to improve reporting quality with flow-on benefits for personalisation and engagement.
Stepping-up marketing automation or personalisation
As marketers demand more sophistication from martech, CXM consultants can provide guidance on optimising the tools to deliver the desired outcomes.
That might look like:
Identifying opportunities for automation or personalisation
Providing implementation or integration guidance
Helping to measure the impact of CXM efforts
In practice, the client’s capability determines how heavy the consultant’s involvement should be. Here at TAP CXM, we work on a sliding scale ranging from best-practice advice to designing solutions, to implementing technology, to operating on our client’s behalf. Every case is unique.
One example that stands out is our work with Gamesys Group, a partner of TAP’s since 2018. Our work with Gamesys has evolved from custom Adobe Campaign development to enduring implementation support. During that time, we’ve seen the Gamesys team grow in skill and confidence, with ongoing support from their CXM consulting partner (that’s us).
How to choose the right CXM consultant
Due to the nature of the marketing automation software landscape, with 10,000+ platforms and countless tech stack configurations, choosing a CXM partner with applicable skills and experience is crucial.
For example, TAP CXM is an implementation-focused partner with extensive experience operating and optimising Adobe-forward martech stacks. We’re experts in all major platforms (and Adobe implementation partners) and provide tailored training through TAP Academy.
We also have experience with related technology (like Braze, FastStats, Tableau, Talend and Salesforce), plus database architecture and business consulting ingrained in our leadership team.
We’re not purporting to be a one-stop CXM shop.
However, as a business, we believe in ‘getting things done’. If there’s a more efficient and affordable way to deliver exceptional customer experiences, we’ll help you find it.
