Instead of talking about mere customer relationships, our perspective has become more multi-dimensional. Now, we are talking about the customer experience. Tom Johnson, a managing director with business-consulting firm BearingPoint, actually sees Customer Relationship Management (CRM) maturing into Customer Experience Management (CEM).. He thinks CRM began to decline when its emphasis shifted to cost-cutting. "But CRM is really about driving growth, not cutting costs," he says.

As a recent article in CIO Today suggests, CEM is about providing a consistent customer experience across all channels -- from marketing to sales to customer support. "If your brand's message is cheap and fast, then you need to be cheap and fast all the time, in every interaction with every customer," says Woody (Woodruff) Driggs, managing partner of Operational CRM at Accenture. "If you are high-end, you need to always be high-end."

The challenge within companies is, in many ways, a failure to communicate. "CEM starts by getting everyone who is important to the customer experience in a room," said Driggs. "We are constantly amazed to discover how often this is the first time that the key people from marketing, advertising, sales and service have talked to one another about what the customer experience should be."

What it shouldn't be is the thing Dell Computer is now trying to address. It began when Jeff Jarvis started making waves with his blog, Buzz Machine. In an "open letter" posted on the site, he berated Michael Dell for making shoddy product after his own $1,600 Dell machine crashed and burned (an experience I have had myself with a brand-new Dell). Apparently, the blog now gets 10,000 daily visits (with comments like, "Buy an Apple, Dude.").

Dell's response? The company got Jarvis his money back right away -- and has started actively tracking down angry customers (particularly the vocal ones). John Hamlin, Dell's SVP for U.S. consumer business, says Dell is adding more call centers and trained phone reps. "The customer experience is one of the most important issues for us," he adds.

There's that word again: experience.

If you are particularly interested in where this idea of customer experience management is headed, I suggest you consider attending the upcoming thinkAbout conference in Keystone, Colorado, which takes place September 14 and 15. It is hosted by Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore, co-authors of The Experience Economy.

"Our experience is not for the meek," they explain. "Each year, it attracts a potent mix of imaginative minds, business trailblazers, and experience mavens. These are people who truly desire to advance the boundaries of new offerings and envision new ways to think about the business of business."