Key Findings

To understand the current state of customer experience (CX) management, Qualtrics XM Institute surveyed 234 CX practitioners about their organization’s CX efforts. As part of this study, we also asked them to complete our CX Competency and Maturity Assessment and XM-Centric Culture Assessment. From our analysis, we found that:

  • Over two-thirds of organizations remain in the first two stages of CX Maturity. Seventy-one percent of practitioners rated their CX Maturity as either Stage 1: Investigate (41%), or Stage 2: Initiate (30%). Eighteen percent say their organization is in the third stage of maturity (Mobilize), while 2% have achieved the fifth stage: Embed. Use the Customer Experience (CX) Maturity Assessment to evaluate your organization’s CX skills and competencies.
  • Most organizations have cultures that can nurture XM adoption. Forty percent of CX practitioners say their XM-Centric Culture Level is nurturing or very nurturing, according to the XM-Centric Culture Assessment. Meanwhile, 23% of organizations have an inhibiting culture, which may prevent XM practices from taking hold.
  • CX Leaders enjoy better business outcomes. Compared to CX Laggards (Maturity Assessment scores below the median), CX leaders are more likely to report that their CX programs have significantly improved key business outcomes for their organization, including customer retention, cross-selling, employee retention, and cost reduction. They are also more likely to describe their organization’s financial results as somewhat or significantly better than competitors (63% vs 40%).
  • Other competing organizational priorities is the top obstacle to CX success. Both CX leaders and CX laggards cite this as a significant obstacle to CX success, with laggards citing it 16 points more frequently than leaders. The largest gap between obstacles selected by CX leaders’ and laggards’ was for unclear return on investment (34-point difference.)

Figures

Here are the figures in this report:

  1. CX Maturity Assessment (see Figure 1)
  2. CX Maturity (see Figure 2)
  3. XM-Centric Culture Assessment (see Figure 3)
  4. XM-Centric Culture Level (see Figure 4)
  5. XM-Centric Culture Levels: Leaders vs. Laggards (see Figure 5)
  6. Priority of Improving XM Areas (see Figure 6)
  7. Executives and Customer Experience (see Figure 7)
  8. Executive Support: leaders vs. Laggards (see Figure 8)
  9. CX Coordination (see Figure 9)
  10. Centralized CX Groups (see Figure 10)
  11. Channel Experience (see Figure 11)
  12. Interaction Quality: Leaders vs. Laggards (see Figure 12)
  13.  CX Metrics and Customer Listening Posts (see Figure 13)
  14. Listening Effectiveness (see Figure 14)
  15. Core CX Metric: Leaders vs. Laggards (see Figure 15)
  16.  Listening Elements: Leaders vs. Laggards (see Figure 16)
  17. CX Technology, Competency, and Culture (see Figure 17)
  18. Obstacles to CX Success (see Figure 18)
  19. CX Obstacles: Leaders vs. Laggards (see Figure 19)
  20.  Momentum of AI-Powered Analytics Tools (see Figure 20)
  21. Momentum of CX Technologies for Driving Action (see Figure 21)
  22. Business Outcomes: Leaders vs. Laggards (see Figure 22)
  23. Financial Results: Leaders vs. Laggards (see Figure 23)
  24. Methodology (see Figure 24)