Rick Parrish

The White House requires federal agencies to “provide a modern, streamlined, and responsive customer experience across government, comparable to leading private sector organizations.” Unfortunately, results from Forrester’s 2018 US Federal Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) show that federal CX remains weak and uneven. The 15 US federal agencies and programs that we rated in this […]

The focus on government CX is not a fad. The new Improving Customer Experience cross-agency priority (CAP) goal in the President’s Management Agenda makes that crystal clear. The goal requires federal agencies to match the private sector and make creating a “modern, streamlined, and responsive experience” a “focal point for agency leadership.” What’s more, the […]

To provide great CX reliably and efficiently, companies must master the six competencies of customer experience management (CXM): research, prioritization, design, enablement, measurement, and culture. Unfortunately, common misconceptions can cause even the most experienced CX professionals to stumble along the path to CXM maturity. In our new report, Avoid These 14 CX Misconceptions, my colleagues […]

For years, back-of-the-napkin analyses have claimed that CX quality correlates with better stock performance. We dug deeper and compared a portfolio of CX leaders in Forrester’s CX Index™ to a portfolio of CX laggards from October 3, 2016 to October 2, 2017. The results of our study were an unambiguous win for the CX leaders […]

This year’s Customer Experience Index report for US brands revealed a CX leadership gap — not a single brand has risen to the top of our rankings and continued to move upward. The report is based on Forrester’s CX Index™ methodology, which measures how well a brand’s CX strengthens the loyalty of its customers. We revealed the […]

Next week at Forrester’s annual CXDC Forum in Washington, D.C., I’ll be joined by more than 200 government leaders who are leading the charge to improve CX at the federal level. Our packed agenda already includes 15+ sessions and features top CX leaders from the Census Bureau, Department of Veteran Affairs, TSA and more. We’ll […]

I’m happy to announce that we just released this year’s Customer Experience Index report for Canadian brands. The report is based on Forrester’s CX Index™ methodology, which measures how well a brand’s customer experience strengthens the loyalty of its customers. This year, we revealed the complete rankings of all 192 brands across 18 industries in […]

I’m happy to announce that we just released this year’s Customer Experience Index report for Canadian brands. The report is based on Forrester's CX Index™ methodology, which measures how well a brand's customer experience strengthens the loyalty of its customers. We use this methodology to create an annual benchmark of CX quality at 193 Canadian […]

The White House requires federal agencies to provide customer experiences that match the best of the private sector's. Yet despite another year of intense focus the federal customer experience remains overwhelmingly weak and uneven. The 15 US federal agencies and programs that we rated in this year’s US Federal Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) earned an […]

CXDC 2016 is just around the corner, and we have an incredible agenda featuring 25+ Federal CX leaders and top Forrester analysts.  I asked two of our speakers from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) – Sarah Brooks, Director, Insight & Design and Julia Kim, Chief of Staff, Veterans Experience – to chat about some of […]

Employees are the lifeblood of a customer-obsessed enterprise. No matter how advanced a company's technology, how big its data, or how trendy it’s marketing, businesses today simply cannot succeed without employees who devote themselves to customers. However, many companies struggle to build a customer-obsessed workforce because they: Hire for skills and experience. Siloed hiring managers focus […]

This post is part of a series dedicated to the challenges, opportunities, and realities of federal customer experience. Interested in learning more? Check out our recent webinar to learn why CX success is vital for government success. In my last post, I explained how forces arrayed against federal customer experience (CX) improvement hinder Washington’s efforts. […]

In a previous blog post about the Customer Experience Index for US brands In 2016, Harley Manning contrasted the rising tide of CX quality with the stagnation among top brands. In this post I'll explore another big finding from our research: CX-fueled digital disruption. In this year's CX Index results we found that: Wireless service […]

This post is part of a series dedicated to the challenges, opportunities, and realities of federal customer experience. Interested in learning more? Register for our complimentary government CX webinar next week, and be sure to join me as I host Forrester’s first-ever CXDC Forum on Sept. 12th in Washington, DC. It’s been 23 years since […]

The White House has been trying to improve the federal digital customer experience (CX) since 2011. But when I published my first report and blog on the topic in 2015, the situation was still dire. A Forrester survey had just shown that, for instance: Only two-fifths of the public agreed that the federal government should […]

It's been eight years since the last presidential transition. Since then, we've seen real progress on the federal customer experience (CX) front, including the creation of the "customer service" cross-agency priority goal; the launch of 18F, the US Digital Service, and similar digital services shops; and the appointment of chief customer officers at four agencies. […]

Digital government is big in Washington. Next year, the White House plans to spend $35 million more on the US Digital Service, $105 million for digital services teams at 25 agencies, and tens of millions more for digital channels throughout the federal government. And that’s just the latest tranche, piled atop hundreds of millions in digital […]

Welcome to the second installment of this series on Congressional action that could affect federal customer experience (CX). As I said in my first post, the purpose of this series is to help federal CX advocates track bills that could affect federal CX. That way, we can suggest improvements, help good ideas become law, and […]

Have you read the results of the Government Business Council’s new “Digital Disconnect” survey? The results are fascinating, and I could go on for quite some time about them (just ask my dogs, who have been listening to me rant about the survey all morning). However, at the moment, I will focus on the result […]