Fixing CX: Vendors, trust and taking action

The CX Network Weekly is the LinkedIn Newsletter from CX Network . Each week we share our take on a key development in experience management, with links to CX Network resources that can inform, inspire and help your organization’s response.

This week’s edition looks at the quality of CX because, according to Forrester , it’s at an all-time low among US-based brands.

Forrester’s annual CX Index ranking went live last month and, “for an unprecedented third year in a row”, it’s tracking downward. For the first time, as many as 39% of brands saw “significant decline” in their scores compared to 17% in 2023, and 10 industry averages declined – that’s two more than in 2022 when the last record was set. The only industry to buck these trends in 2024 was the airline industry.?

Here’s the eight-year trend recorded by the CX Index

The results beg the question: What’s wrong with CX?

When we asked consultant and CX Network Advisory Board member Vinay Parmar for his take on the state of CX at present, he said: “In the majority of organizations CX is broken as a result of over promised outcomes from vendors and providers in the past. There have been lots of promises and lots of tech revolutions along the way – chatbots, predictive email – all these things that have failed to live up to [the expectations]. Companies invested on the back of a claim and never saw the results.”

The problems don’t end there.

“There is a lack of trust, fundamentally, from leadership teams, about whether CX really does make the difference that it is reported to make. Many companies have failed to move the dial on CX because they have given up on the investment. It comes down to ‘do we trust that by doing this it drives enough value into our business’,” he adds.

Many reading this newsletter will find the situation familiar. In fact, several findings from our research into the Global State of CX reinforce Vinay’s point:

• When we asked our network members to describe their business culture as few as 10% of practitioners said they are trusted to be more experimental in their work due to the returns CX has delivered for their organization in the past. That means 90% are not trusted – and that poses a threat to the future of CX.
• This may be disappointing, but it isn’t a huge surprise: 65% of respondents said there are a lot of CX benefits that go unmeasured in their organization.
• Finally, when we asked about the maturity of their customer experience management strategy, 12% selected “mature”, while the majority (35%) selected “established”.

While practitioners can’t do much about unmet expectations around tech, it is possible to prove the worth of CX and enhance the recognition it enjoys within the organization.

Yvette Mihelic , fellow Advisory Board member and director of CX for JHG Australia, says: “I believe it is up to us as practitioners to educate, advise and demonstrate the interconnectivity of CX with overall organizational performance.

“Practitioners need to cross-pollinate CX across organizations and industries – through entire supply chains if possible – in order to create a meaningful identity for CX and ultimately betterment, not only for us organizationally, but also for the customers we serve.”

Business culture, however, is more difficult to address. Remember how Forrester said the airline industry is the only one to buck current trends? Well, a couple of weeks ago we caught up with another CX Network Advisory Board member, Jorie Sax , head of United Airlines’ Innovation Lab.

Explaining how practitioners can take action within their organizations and get their ideas off the ground, she said: “Having patience when you’re launching something new is critical.

“Oftentimes we have an action-first mindset where we just want to move. We know what needs to be done and we want to plough through it. But I have learned in recent years that it is really important to have some restraint. Listen, observe, assess and understand, and plot the right path forward in a purposeful and thoughtful manner.”

Here are 3 links on how to take action, deliver innovation and enhance the quality of CX.

Here’s something to inform you…

?Here’s something to inspire you…

Here is something to help you…