Tailoring your own business processes to the individual requirements of the respective target group is becoming an increasingly central competitive factor in the increasingly digital market environments of the life sciences and chemical industry. This goes far beyond traditional customer experience management and now affects almost all areas of the world of experience between companies and their stakeholders. A holistic approach that takes a holistic view of experience management is the key to a sustainable customer and stakeholder-centric orientation of the company.

Ever shorter launch cycles and changes in the information behavior of doctors and medical decision-makers are permanently changing the way companies in the chemical and life sciences industry interact with their customers. Against this backdrop, the quality of the customer experience across the various channels is becoming increasingly important in this sector, which has been less customer-centric to date. Companies have therefore begun to improve their central customer contact points with regard to the customer experience. Be it through a shorter checkout process or optimized customer support. However, the customer experience is only one part of the brand experience. The approach also offers great potential beyond the immediate customer journey, for example in the identification of measures to improve the user experience and increase satisfaction in different corporate target groups such as employees, investors, etc.

"Many companies today are only using a fraction of the potential of experience management because they are focusing exclusively on CX."

Customer experience was yesterday – today it's all about experience management

In order to do justice to these diverse fields of application, we not only speak of customer experience in this context, but also understand a holistic brand experience as the result of comprehensive experience management. At the heart of this holistic approach remains the ability to understand the requirements and needs of the respective target group and to optimally align one's own processes, products and services with them. On the one hand, this requires suitable tools and methods in order to gain a deep understanding of the respective target group. On the other hand, the know-how and structures to counter potential pain points or obstacles on the way to a first-class user experience with suitable solutions.

Holistic experience management essentially comprises the following areas

• CX: Customer Experience
  

  Customer experience (CX) describes the sum of all interactions between customers and companies along the customer journey – both online and offline. This ranges from the initial introduction to the company and its products and services, through the user experience during the ordering and payment process, to ongoing customer service and support.

  A high-quality customer experience is characterized by a seamless, intuitive and personalized user experience across all touchpoints in the sense of an omnichannel experience. To achieve this, the individual stages of the customer journey must be easily and intuitively accessible, provide relevant and helpful information and offer an experience that is tailored or customizable to the individual needs and requirements of the respective target group. Ideally, this is complemented by customer service that understands the customer's pain points and is able to respond to them quickly and effectively.

  A deep understanding of customers and their requirements and needs along the customer journey is crucial for this. This can be achieved by using customer feedback and other forms of data analysis. The data makes it possible to identify areas with potential for improvement and make data-driven decisions to optimize the customer experience.

  When implemented correctly, a positive customer experience can help to promote customer retention and loyalty by building a strong emotional bond between the customer and the company. This emotional connection is often built through a combination of functional and emotional benefits such as ease of use, quality, trust and fun.

• PX: Product Experience
  

  The product experience is the sum of all experiences that customers have when dealing with a product or service throughout the entire product life cycle. In addition to the direct product features and functions, this also includes aspects such as packaging and customer support through to additional product-related services. What constitutes a positive product experience depends on the product in question and ranges from user-friendliness, performance and ease of maintenance to recyclability.

  It is crucial for a positive product experience to know the usage habits and requirements of the respective user groups and to take them into account when designing the product or the product-related services.

  Good product experience management is in constant communication with product design and management and thus ensures continuous development and improvement of the product experience.

  In this way, PX can lead to loyal customers who are willing to pay more for a product or service, give positive reviews and recommendations, and even become advocates for the brand. On the other hand, a negative product experience can lead to customer dissatisfaction, negative reviews and a drop in sales and profits.

• EX: Employee Experience
  

  Employee experience describes the sum of the interactions that employees have with their employer over the course of their career journey – from induction and training to their experience at work and their departure from the company.

  The aim is to build a strong and trusting emotional bond between employees and the company by optimizing the working environment. Depending on the employee, a combination of various functional and emotional aspects is crucial for this. These include job satisfaction, work-life balance, development opportunities and a sense of purpose and belonging.

  In order to realize the best possible employee experience for a large number of employees, the use of employee feedback and other forms of data analysis can be increased. This data can be used to identify opportunities for improvement and make data-based decisions to optimize the employee experience.

  When implemented correctly, a positive employee experience can help to sustainably increase employee satisfaction, retain talent for the long term and build a strong, engaged workforce that is motivated to contribute to the success of the organization. With the severe skills shortage in the life sciences industry, creating a positive work environment for employees is critical to attracting and retaining the best talent, building a strong company culture and driving long-term business success.

• BX: Brand Experience
  

  Brand experience refers to all interactions that customers, partners or investors have with a brand, both online and offline. This includes the way in which the brand is presented and marketed, the experience that customers or business partners have with the company and the quality of the customer service offered. A positive brand experience is crucial for building customer loyalty and creating an emotional connection between stakeholders and the brand. To achieve this, companies need to communicate a consistent brand message, understand the needs of their respective target groups and tailor the brand experience accordingly. Techniques such as storytelling and experience marketing can enhance the brand experience. In today's competitive market, a positive brand experience is crucial to ensure long-term success and differentiate from the competition.

Holistic understanding of XM as a key success factor in the digital competitive environment

Companies with a holistic understanding of XM achieve competitive advantages by providing high-quality brand experiences for the various corporate target groups beyond the immediate customer journey, thereby ensuring a positive and consistent brand experience across all target groups. Especially in today's highly competitive and hyper-connected age, with increasingly fragmented and difficult to define target groups, the holistic optimization of experiences is becoming increasingly important. Against this backdrop, a holistic experience management approach helps to ensure that brand experiences are not viewed as isolated events, but to establish customer and user centricity across different areas of the company as a central guiding principle.

In addition to technical and procedural adjustments, this requires above all a cultural transformation. This is because the consistent alignment of all processes with the needs of customers and employees is an enormous change for many organizations and requires all areas and people involved to be integrated and made aware of the importance of experience management.

Conclusion

To date, most companies have focused exclusively on managing and improving customer experiences in relation to their product along the digital customer journey. In doing so, they often overlook the further potential that holistic experience management offers in terms of aspects such as employee and customer loyalty. Experience management is more than just product perception. Rather, it is about understanding and anchoring customer and stakeholder centricity as a central principle of entrepreneurial action in the organization.