EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Temkin Group has evaluated the state of Customer Experience (CX) management at large companies for nine years in a row. This year, the benchmark is based on a survey of 171 companies with at least $500 million in annual revenues. Respondents not only answered questions about CX management, they also completed our CX Competency and Maturity Assessment. When we analyzed organizations’ CX efforts and progress towards maturity, we found that:
- While only 7% of companies view themselves as industry leaders in CX today, 54% aspire to be leaders within three years.
- Only 13% of companies have reached the top two (out of six) levels of CX maturity.
- Of the four CX Core Competencies, Compelling Brand Values continues to be the most problematic for companies.
- Twenty-two percent of firms have at least 21 FTEs in their centralized CX groups.
- Companies rate themselves highest for customer insights & analysis and weakest for ambassador programs.
- Voice of the customer software and market research vendors are the most valuable CX tools and services.
- Two-thirds of companies think that their phone agents typical deliver a good experience, while only 11% feel that way about chat bots.
- The top obstacle that companies face is other competing priorities, which has been at the top of the list for several years.
- When we compared CX leaders with CX laggards, we discovered that the leaders enjoy stronger financial results, are more likely to have senior executives leading company-wide CX efforts, employ more full-time CX employees, use more experience design agencies, and feel more supported by senior leaders.
- CX leaders are more likely to describe their culture as being Customer- or Mission-Centric, while CX laggards are more likely to describe theirs as Sales- or Profit-Centric.
- This report also includes an assessment that companies can use to benchmark their CX efforts and capabilities.
This report was originally published by Temkin Group prior to its acquisition by Qualtrics in October 2018. It has been reformatted, but no substantive changes have been made to the content.
