Understand the differences between product experience management and product information management, and how to engage customers on the purchase journey with product information.
What is product experience management?
Customers click away from shopping sites when they can’t find the answer to questions about a product—and there’s no limit to what they might want to know. Product experience management (PxM) leverages everything you know about both your products and your customers to deliver a customer-centric, personalized, multichannel or omnichannel, search-guided, and social-powered experience that attracts and converts shoppers. PxM centralizes management of customer, product, supplier, and other data, applies machine learning and other AI techniques to that data so you can link transaction and interaction data, and provides relevant, contextual, engaging content to the right audience at the right time and in the right place.
How does PxM relate to PIM?
A product information management (PIM) solution creates one authoritative system of record for product information. It replaces information silos with easy, universal access to centralized product data for all stakeholders (like suppliers, project managers, and shipping specialists) so that they can access, update, manage, and enrich all the information—size, dimensions, materials, colors, compatibility, and so on—that’s needed to market and sell products across channels.
Consistent, complete product information in a PIM application is central to the modern purchase journey, but it’s only the foundation of a transformed product experience. PxM is the process of delivering product information to shoppers in a way that’s both appropriate to the channel and personalized—both to the customer’s individual history and to their relationship with you.
PxM integrates data from other sources and touchpoints, such as CRM, ERP, and marketing automation solutions, as well as contextual data like location and device and social data (i.e., ratings and reviews from other customers), so that shoppers see the information they want most at the moment it matters most: when they’re making the purchasing decision.
Why do I need PxM?
Seamless and comprehensive connection product data with customer and contextual data enables a host of insights that drive truly personalized customer experiences. PxM facilitates cross-selling and upselling opportunities, personalized interactions, and individually relevant product recommendations both optimize potential revenue while also making it clear to your customers that you’re dedicated to giving them all the information they need to choose a product that meets all their requirements.
Ultimately, by generating deeper insights about your customers and their purchase journey, PxM drives sales, builds loyalty, and ensures exceptional customer experiences.
What are the benefits of product experience management?
Connecting product data with customer data improves your understanding of your customers so you can better tailor your communications, service, and interactions on an individual level. These are just some of the benefits of PxM:
- Making more meaningful purchase recommendations by connecting what you know about each customer to what you know about every product
- Improving the omnichannel customer experience by ensuring that you offer the right product information at the right touchpoint in the right moment for every customer
- Targeting product information more precisely and effectively based on factors such as where the customer is and what device they’re currently using to access information from you
- Driving up margins and/or earning supplier volume discounts by suggesting relevant products that also have the best margins or stock availability
- Improving supplier relationship management by connecting information about your suppliers with information about your suppliers with information about their products
What are some use cases for PxM?
One of the world’s best-selling luxury automakers lets customers design their own cars using an online car configuration tool that shows them all the options available for each model. Because the data that drives the tool was siloed in different systems in multiple locations, though, the automaker struggled to ensure that its customers’ experiences with the tool were consistent across its 140 markets. Working with Informatica, it created a content hub to provide a single view of product data across all customer touchpoints. This solution allows the company to show consistent text, images, and descriptions of global car configurations and aftermarket parts and accessories, no matter where customers are or what device they’re using to access the information. At the same time, it enables the auto company to tailor product offers and new vehicle launches to specific markets and even specific buyers.
In the increasingly customer-centric consumer electronics market, a retailer with more than 400 stores in six countries wanted to turn outstanding customer experience into a competitive differentiator. To do that, though, it needed to take a new approach to product and customer data so it could bring products to market faster and deliver information about those products consistently across all channels and customer touchpoints. Working with Informatica, the retailer created an agile foundation for data management that improved the accuracy and completeness of its product data, decreased the time to onboard information about new products by 60%, and improved the effectiveness of its digital marketing strategy. Today, thanks to tracking both in-store and online purchases, the retailer has a deeper understanding of its customers’ buying behaviors and is better able to meet their demands for complete and correct information during the research and buying process. Customer satisfaction is up, while complaints and product returns are down.
Product experience management resources
- Five Ways to Enhance Product Experience: An Informatica eBook about fully leveraging product information to create compelling customer experiences
- The Ultimate Workbook for Product Information Management: Everything you need to know about implementing PIM and kickstarting product experience management
- From PIM to PxM: The Evolution of Product Information Management: A succinct summary of the difference between PIM and PxM
