We conducted our 2019 survey on customer experience (CX) teams in the hopes of understanding the characteristics that correlate. We looked at a range of variables: size and scope, budgets, and buy-in. Our discovery: There are only slight correlations in certain circumstances. If you want the specs for the perfect CX team, there is no such description. However, there are notable trends:

  • CX teams are decreasingly likely to sit in marketing. In 2019, 22% of teams with CX as a primary responsibility sat in marketing, down from 26% in 2017. Interviews suggested that there are many successful teams who still sit in marketing but are empowered by their CMOs to behave like centralized entities.
  • Teams remain small: 64% of CX teams had 10 people or fewer. This is not surprising given how many new teams are forming every year, but follow-up interviews also revealed that proving the value of growing the team is taking CX leaders longer than expected.
  • Cooperation across the organization is the biggest challenge. Failure to coordinate CX efforts across the organization has increased by 9% since 2017. Relatedly . . .
  • . . . executives aren’t doing enough for CX. Forty-five percent of respondents said executives say CX is important but don’t act accordingly. Without sounding like a broken record, Forrester’s stance on this is to be sure to build the business case for CX and prove ROI. Talk in dollars to get your executives to listen and act.

Figures and analysis can be found in the full report, “CX Teams In 2019: What They Do, Where They Report, And Their Size And Budget.”

Survey Methodology

Forrester’s Q2 2019 Global State of Customer Experience Programs Online Survey was fielded to 538 Forrester contacts with interest in customer experience. For quality assurance, we screened respondents to ensure they met minimum standards in terms of job responsibilities.

Forrester fielded the survey from June to July 2019. Respondent incentives included a summary of the survey results. Exact sample sizes are provided in this report on a question-by-question basis.

This survey used a self-selected group of respondents (CX professionals and those interested in CX) and is therefore not random. This data is not guaranteed to be representative of the population, and, unless otherwise noted, statistical data is intended to be used for descriptive and not inferential purposes. While nonrandom, the survey is still a valuable tool for understanding where users are today and where the industry is headed.