Forrester’s customer experience (CX) research team published more than 100 reports in 2018. I just released a report that pulls together our most important CX findings from those publications and highlights them in one place. The report is called “Forrester’s Top Customer Experience Research Findings Of 2018.”

The key discoveries that I feature in my new report spread across four themes:

  • CX quality is stuck and is unlikely to surge in 2019. Our Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) showed that in 2018, CX quality languished for the third year in a row. What’s worse, most firms fail to perform the 12 CX management activities with the four facets of discipline — rigor, cadence, coordination, and accountability. As a result, we’re unlikely to see broad improvement in CX Index scores in 2019.
  • The case for CX is stronger than ever. We already knew that CX leaders grow revenue faster than CX laggards, drive higher brand preference, and can charge more for their products. Our new research proved conclusively that CX quality can affect stock performance. We also learned that the benefits of CX for investment firms are staggering. A 1-point improvement in CX Index score can yield $19 billion more assets under management for the average multichannel brokerage and $6 billion more assets for the average direct brokerage.
  • Five common problems hold back CX transformations. In 2018, we learned that most firms: sacrifice voice-of-the-customer (VoC) quality because it’s painful to change customer feedback management vendors; make CX less engaging by making it easier; stumble by paying employees to provide good CX; prioritize CX projects poorly; and degrade product research with bias and missteps.
  • Three key solutions will help firms boost their CX transformations. Our new research revealed that companies must elevate their CX strategies, employee experience, and design programs. We studied top firms and identified the six components of successful CX strategies, the five factors that make a great employee experience, and the six ways that top design organizations scale up.