Forrester’s US 2020 Customer Experience Index (CX Index) rankings revealed that 27% of brands improved their CX Index scores over the past year. Factors contributing to the increase in scores this year include CX professionals prioritizing high-impact projects, securing executive buy-in, evangelizing CX projects across the organization, and designing experiences that emotionally resonate with customers.
Additionally, nine industries improved their score averages, and the number of brands with good scores jumped 3 percentage points to 20%, the largest gain in five years.
As brands adapt to changing consumer behaviours due to COVID-19, building experiences that help them empathetically engage with their customers will bolster customer loyalty. Consistently high-performing brands have built a reservoir of goodwill — or CX equity — with their clients, which gives them the freedom to experiment and fumble with little ramifications. This will be particularly important as companies try to innovate to meet the needs of the customer in a post-pandemic world.
“To emerge successfully from this global crisis, brands must build experiences that help them engage with their customers at an emotional level,” said Sharyn Leaver, SVP of Research at Forrester. “Brands can build a well of CX equity if they embrace a disciplined approach to envisioning, designing, and delivering a consistently high-quality experience. When consumer spending resumes, brands with experiences that engender customer loyalty will benefit the most.”
