Before you can be sure where to make your customer experience management (CEM) investments, it is critical to assess the effectiveness of your current customer experience. Most organizations invest in surveying customers.  However, surveying this audience alone misses a major part of the CEM equation –your employees. They are a key driver of customer satisfaction and hold a wealth of knowledge about your company and the products and services you offer. 

You then need to take the next step and identify the gaps between employee perceptions of what is important to customers and what customers actually say is important to them.  These gaps are at the heart of the misalignment between your company's desire to provide great customer service and the actual performance of your employees.