CX North America

Now that values-based consumers dominate the market, it’s more important than ever for companies to behave ethically. At the same time, new design techniques, technologies, and brain science tempt companies with the power to manipulate their customers. In this fraught environment, marketing and CX pros must become their brands’ moral compass by defining stances on hot-button values topics, showing what is both profitable and ethical, and building these positions into their companies’ operating models. Join Rick and Emily for this spirited discussion of what values really mean for business and how you can guide your company to success.

Speakers:
Emily Collins, Principal Analyst, Forrester
Rick Parrish, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester

CX pros must mature to more actionable CX measurement that’s less invasive to the customer experience. In this session, CX leaders will learn how to move beyond surveys to measure and improve customer experience by tapping into new data sources and more effectively bringing together data about the customer experience.

Speakers:
Maxie Schmidt, Principal Analyst, Forrester
T.S. Balaji, VP, Experience Design & Customer Experience, Cox Communications
Jhumur Choudhury, Research Lead, Business and Wealth, ATB Financial

A recent Forrester survey of 1,800 global marketing professionals measured the maturity of their marketing organizations. We found that the most advanced firms grow faster, spend more, and are most closely aligned with the CX groups in their organizations. This session will share the business case for why CX and marketing need to join forces.

Speakers:
Mary Pilecki, VP, Research Director, Forrester

Though it might seem like sacrilege to a customer-obsessed business, you don’t have to deliver a great customer experience to every customer. Large enterprises shouldn’t even try: They’re better off focusing on just those customers they can turn into super fans, and letting anyone else who wants to come along for the ride.

Speakers:
TJ Keitt, Principal Analyst, Forrester

An innovation must address a need to succeed — and the most ambitious innovation efforts often seek to address future needs. So how can you know today what your customers will want tomorrow?

Speakers:
Jeff Lash, VP, Group Director, Product Management, Forrester

Creativity, and the distinctiveness it brings, is a critical strategy for growth. Brands will better serve their customers by connecting the unique characteristics of their brand to their products, experiences, and communication through creative talent and problem-solving skills throughout their organization. But creativity and creative problem solvers require the right conditions to thrive. Join this track to learn how to build a culture of creativity inside your organization, in-house agency or marketing department.

Speakers:
Jay Pattisall, Principal Analyst, Forrester

B2B marketers get it. They understand the pivots they must make to connect with the business consumer across the entire life cycle. The question is not why, but how. In this session, we will introduce Forrester’s journey marketing blueprint— a framework designed to help you transform your organization from the traditional role of brand steward, lead-generation machine, and sales supporter to become an architect of engagement across the entire customer life cycle.

Speakers:
Lori Wizdo, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Values-based consumers have stormed onto the scene, and their crescendo of demands has jolted brands to prove that they care about moral, environmental, or political causes. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic is changing the consumer’s world, shoppers are reevaluating their priorities. While a rising social consciousness makes consumers even more sensitive to company values, the loss of discretionary income and new logistical challenges shift the landscape of consumer choice. In this session, learn about how the pandemic is evolving the narrative of the values-based consumer.

Speakers:
Anjali Lai, Senior Analyst, Forrester

CX metrics and data in isolation from each other do not create the kind of CX transformation that companies aspire to – in fact, it hinders transformation. In this session, CX leaders will learn how to move beyond a siloed view of CX and customer feedback and focus on how to get to a holistic view – one that requires CX metrics, multiple forms of customer feedback, operational metrics, and more to enable smarter decisions, stakeholder engagement and action.

Speakers:
Faith Adams, Senior Analyst, Forrester

Marketers have invested heavily in delivering contextually relevant customer engagement. As rigid campaigns evolve to be more dynamic and in-the-moment, how should today’s marketer separate signals from noise? In this session, you will learn what goes into discerning and crafting moments, with examples of how brands are delivering on moments that matter across the customer journey.

Speakers:
Stephanie Liu, Analyst, Forrester
Joe Stanhope, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Traditional customer segmentation is dead. It had a good run but now the glory days of rules-based univariate and multivariate segmentation are over. In its place: personalization using customer analytics on existing customer data and AI-enabled consumer segmentation. This lets companies resonate with customers’ shifting emotions and attitudes, inform market strategy and product development, and expand outside your core customer base.

Speakers:
Brandon Purcell, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Innovation based on AI, VR, and other emerging tech often misfires. Can you up-level your journey mapping from current-state to future-state, to succeed at adjacent and disruptive innovation?

Speakers:
Jennifer Wise, Principal Analyst, Forrester

We face a design, data science and analytics collision in which contrasting world views and methods reduce the value of the groups. Confusion reigns about how to work together, preventing many from creating as much change as is needed. This session will present the state of current collaboration and ways to move forward.

Speakers:
Andrew Hogan, Principal Analyst, Forrester
Ovetta Sampson, Principal Creative Director, Sampson & Associates, IDEO Alumna
Bob Baxley, SVP, Design & Experience, ThoughtSpot

Some of the concepts and tools that you already use for improving yours. The customer experience (CX) also works for improving employee experience (EX), such as journey mapping, but not everything does. Why? Because the psychological foundations of EX and CX are significantly different. Creating great EX requires new knowledge and tools. In this session, we will share the similarities and differences between them, and equip you with new insights and tools to help you tackle EX in ways that work.

Speakers:
David Johnson, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Choosing and communicating your values is important, but you also need to show authentic commitment to those values. That manifests in more than marketing and customer experience – it extends to your operations, employee experience, and partner relationships. Join Brigitte Majewski for a discussion to learn how brands express their values beyond marketing.

Speakers:
Brigitte Majewski, VP, Research Director, Forrester
Beth Wade, Global Chief Marketing Officer, VMLY&R
Catherine Wolf, Director, Customer Experience for Sustainability, Autodesk

The need for timely, accurate, accessible data to deliver great experiences and measure performance continues to grow. But brands struggle with data speed, quality, and granularity. This session will outline four short-term actions to improve the business value of your measurement program today.

Speakers:
Jim Nail, Principal Analyst, Forrester
James McCormick, Principal Analyst, Forrester

How do you determine the right content to display on your website, on social, and in your ads? In this session, we will show you how ​using ​qualitative design research methodologies can enhance the content creation process to improve performance of your marketing efforts. We will share the tactics and methodologies of brands that have optimized content through ​stronger design research/marketing collaboration.

Speakers:
Kelly Price, Senior Analyst, Forrester
Collin Colburn, Senior Analyst, Forrester

Conventional wisdom says that loyal customers are those who stay with a business. But customer data tells a different story. Some customers stay because they’re trapped by a monopoly, with no alternative. Others are merely satisfied; they don’t have a good reason to leave but they would if something better came along. Learn what Forrester’s Customer Experience Index tells us about customers who choose to stay with a brand and even increase their share of wallet – because they’re having a great experience.

Speakers:
Michelle Yaiser, Principal Analyst, CX Index, Forrester

Open source has transformed software development, and a similar shift is underway in experience design. What do you need to do to reap the benefits of this transformation of design?

Speakers:
Gina Bhawalkar, Principal Analyst, Serving Customer Experience Professionals, Forrester

The value must be created at the convergence BX and CX. Firms that evolve toward this harmony between promises made and experiences delivered have elevated their thinking about creating and delivering experiences. This session examines how these firms proceed in a deliberate manner to align strategies, execution, organization, and measurement to maximize the value of their brands.

Speakers:
Dipanjan Chatterjee, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Forrester
Beth Ard, Vice President of Customer Experience, CenturyLink

“CX transformation” is a loosely-defined term that can encompass a broad array of activities supporting advancements in CX maturity. In this session, you’ll hear about B2B firms’ transformational efforts they are leading, including what they’re doing, why, what’s working so far, and what pitfalls to avoid.

Speakers:
Judy Weader, Senior Analyst, Forrester
Karen Pascoe, SVP, Experience Design, MasterCard
Jen Zamora, Senior Director, Global Customer Experience and Employee Experience, Dow

As economies begin a cycle of partial re-openings and social distancing restrictions, companies must anticipate shifts in customer demand, engagement and purchase behaviors to adapt and thrive in the New Normal. You’ll learn the CX measurement approach to monitor the vital signs of business recovery and accurately plan for staffing, operational and safety needs; take the “recovery preparedness” test to set a current benchmark for your company today, and then hear from Forrester’s strategy consulting team on how to setup your own CX measurement for recovery planning. 

Speakers:
Kara Hoisington, Principal Consultant, Forrester
Alex Stein, Senior Consultant, Forrester

COVID19 is causing companies to scramble and create entirely new customer experiences.  Before, CX was about perfectly laid out experiences.  But now, customers need comfort, assurance, and control.   Join Forrester’s Chief Business Technology Officer and Head of FeedbackNow as he discusses what he’s hearing from clients and how you’re going to have to take on new operations, methodologies, and technologies in order to survive in this new world.

Speakers:
Steve Peltzman, Chief Business Technology Officer, Head of FeedbackNow, Forrester

The adoption of artificial intelligence represents a significant business opportunity, but it is also fraught with certain risks. Unlike other technologies, AI has the ability to learn biases inherent in data and perpetuate those biases at scale with a veneer of objectivity. Now more than ever, companies need clearly articulated corporate values and a means of enforcing them. Those that aren’t careful risk running afoul of regulations, making poor business decisions, and alienating values-driven consumers. This session will focus on how to ensure the AI systems you’re deploying align with your corporate values and best practices for ethical AI adoption.

Speakers:
Brandon Purcell, Principal Analyst, Forrester

With Chrome, Firefox, and Safari taking active measures to limit or block third-party cookies, marketers are left wondering how this will impact the future of digital advertising, marketing measurement, audience creation, targeting, personalization, and consumer privacy. This session will break down these implications for marketers.

Speakers:
Tina Moffett, Senior Analyst, Forrester

Some DTC brands have been able to get prospects through the customer journey faster – reducing the time from discovery to buy. In this session, you will learn how DTC brands are accelerating this path by redefining convenience and the customer experience.

Speakers:
Ryan Skinner, Principal Analyst, Forrester
Jennifer Wise, Principal Analyst, Forrester

What’s the best way to keep a customer: Reward her with a points program, wow her with a white glove experience or something else altogether? Marketers and CX professionals traditionally approach the job of retaining customers from different directions. Is one approach better than the other? In reality, the best solution is one that combines best practices from both disciplines towards a common end of keeping the most valuable customers truly loyal to a brand.

Speakers:
Angelina Gennis, Analyst, Forrester
Penny Wise, President, 3M Canada
Sandra Rondzik, VP, Client Experience Measurement & Insights, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC)

Many companies obsess about how valuable each customer is. But what value do the customers get — functional, economic, experiential, and symbolic — out of their interactions with brand?

Speakers:
Maxie Schmidt, Principal Analyst, Forrester

In the age of the customer, surviving companies will adapt by staying on the heels of changing customer behavior; thriving companies innovate by taking smart bets on what customers want and then creating the new behavior. To innovate at this level, companies must understand their customers better than customers know themselves and have the vision to translate razor-sharp customer understanding into the strategic design. In this session, learn about how to look around the corner of human behavior, spot opportunities for valuable differentiation, and nudge the most desirable customers into your experience.

Speakers:
Anjali Lai, Senior Analyst, Forrester

Strong brands motivate customers to act on the behalf of the brand — entering into a relationship, staying loyal, advocating, and more. The best brands do the same for their employees by creating the environment and nurturing relationships to attract and retain great people. This session will explore the common foundations of brand building for customers and employees.

Speakers:
Dipanjan Chatterjee, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Consumers expect brands to take a stand on environmental, social, or political issues and won’t settle for a neutral stand. But brands’ attempts to leverage values are littered with more failures than successes. In this session, you’ll learn from brands who are leading the move to making values core to the brand promise what it takes to pick the “right” value to stand for and build an authentic message that motivates consumers.

Speakers:
Jim Nail, Principal Analyst, Forrester
Andrea Brimmer, Chief Marketing & Public Relations Officer, Ally Financial
Michelle Mullineaux, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, JUST Capital

Are you getting the right data to calculate the metrics you need? In many firms, the answer is a resounding “no,” because there’s a lack of alignment between the right data and the right metrics needed for actions that matter. In this session, you’ll learn how to create that organizational alignment by using the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) framework.

Speakers:
Cinny Little, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Every CX professional understands how important responsive, connected customer service is in the customer’s journey. And marketers are beginning to focus on how great customer service can propel clients to the retention and loyalty stages of the journey. This session will share the strategies and technologies needed to deliver collaborative customer service across the enterprise – and the customer journey.

Speakers:
Art Schoeller, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Leaders in Forrester’s Customer Experience Index range from firms like USAA and Edward Jones that serve narrower, more homogenous markets to giant enterprises like Lexus and Vanguard that serve mass markets. This session will examine the differences and surprising similarities between the approaches these customer experience icons use successfully to achieve CX and business success.

Speakers:
Faith Adams, Senior Analyst, Forrester
Carrie Bolton, Product Manager, Customer Experience Analytics, Vanguard
Marcia Sanford, VP, Member Research and Intelligence, Navy Federal Credit Union

Many of today’s digital experiences are riddled with ads selected based on data about consumers, who find them increasingly alienating. Advertising will evolve again in response — but how?

Speakers:
Joanna O'Connell, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Companies’ current approach to CX threatens growth. As many of the world’s biggest and brightest brands are languishing in a CX rut and suffer from digital sameness, a phenomenon where customers can’t tell one experience from another. We’re so busy solving every customer need and desire with the convenience and ease of digital that we’ve forgotten the most important ingredient: creative differentiation. Join this track, prototyping the total brand experience to learn how creative problem solving can unify experiences, products, and communication to create a tech-fueled, creatively-driven total brand experience.

Speakers:
Jay Pattisall, Principal Analyst, Forrester
Jon Cook, CEO, VMLY&R

In B2B organizations, marketing is responsible for crafting and communicating the brand promise. It is also more likely to hold primary responsibility for defining the CX guaranteed by that promise. So why do most marketing executives commit the lion’s share of budget, resources, and effort to net-new customer acquisition? In this session, Laura will explain why CMOs must redefine customer marketing’s purpose and expand its role beyond its upsell, cross-sell and newsletter roots to deliver better customer insights, increase post-sale success and retention, and turn loyal customers into advocates.

Speakers:
Laura Ramos, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Customers express their values and align them to the brand. When the brand betrays those values, customers collectively bargain to change corporate policy. This session will take you through the collective bargaining hall of fame…from Norma Rae to Barbie.

Speakers:
Renee Murphy, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Brand measurement is both science and art, capturing “hard” features and “soft” emotional perceptions. But most of all it is about strategy – the insights that help formulate it, the system that ensures effectiveness, and the dynamic feedback loop that keeps brands relevant for their customers. Learn about how to effectively tie measurement to strategy.

Speakers:
Dipanjan Chatterjee, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Forrester

The CX pros who have succeeded in focusing their firms on customer journeys now need to measure the success of those journeys to more effectively prioritize CX improvement efforts and gauge whether those efforts are working. By quantifying in-journey signals and end-of-journey success effectively, CX pros can measure and manage journey performance. In this session the analyst explains how to build a measurement framework to assess journey performance.

Speakers:
Joana de Quintanilha, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Many CX professionals find it hard to make the case for investing in CX. That’s because they don’t demonstrate the impact of CX in a way that’s both measurable and meaningful to stakeholders. In this session, Forrester will share research on how CX drives both top- and bottom line business success. And you’ll learn best practices for how to prove that funding your CX transformation is worth it.

Speakers:
Maxie Schmidt, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Even well-designed CX can fall short, if you give your workforce mediocre digital tools to deliver it, so why do companies often do exactly that? The reasons are crumbling and there’s a better way.

Speakers:
Andrew Hogan, Principal Analyst, Forrester
Ovetta Sampson, Principal Creative Director, Sampson & Associates, IDEO Alumna
Bob Baxley, SVP, Design & Experience, ThoughtSpot

Advances in technology have made it easier to stare at our phones then into each other’s faces. And yet customer-obsessed companies understand that digital disruption just makes us crave empathy and human connection all the more. In this session, we’ll use the power of storytelling to help you find the missing common ground with your customers. Get ready to learn (and practice!) the storyteller’s craft and how to use it to build an emotional bond with any audience.

Speakers:
Shar VanBoskirk, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Customer obsession makes your company better in every way: increased revenue growth, high customer satisfaction, and happier employees. Becoming customer-obsessed doesn’t happen on its own. It requires leadership that puts the customer at the center of your organization’s strategy and operations. This leadership was already crucial before the pandemic but now the need to thoughtfully prepare and equip empathetic leaders is more urgent than before. Learn from Forrester leadership expert, Katy Tynan, how companies can prepare their leaders with the tools and skills necessary to lead employees through the current and future challenges.

Speakers:
James L. McQuivey, PhD, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester
Katy Tynan, Principal Analyst, Forrester

After driving organizational alignment with a customer obsessed vision,  CX, Marketing, and Operational leaders often return to their functional planning and unknowingly sustain the very tools, processes and metrics holding their teams back. Are the milestones you track , the creative routing you approve and  the scripts you read truly customer focused? The devil is in the detail so let’s take a look at three real world scenarios that may seem all too familiar and how to reset for success.

Speakers:
Thomas Stilling, VP, Digital Research, Forrester

Maybe you’ve heard of B Corps? They’re businesses that have committed to meet certain standards of transparency, accountability, sustainability, and performance. They aim to create value for society, not just shareholders, and include such varied brands as Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia, Etsy, and Fetzer. But what is a B Corp, and how can you decide whether your firm should consider becoming one? In this session, Alla Valente will give you the tools to answer this question and will show why B Corp certification is a commitment more firms should consider.

Speakers:
Alla Valente, Analyst, Forrester

With thousands—or even millions—of hours of customer service interactions, brands sit on untapped goldmines of information. Applying conversational analytics on those interactions will allow brands to see how well they are doing in providing engaging service experiences, both historically and in the moment. As a bonus, conversational analytics can also provide insights for everything from website design to new product ideas to marketing campaign effectiveness. Join us to learn best practices in applying conversational analytics to customer service measurement.

Speakers:
Ian Jacobs, Principal Analyst, Forrester

CX pros know that understanding customers and the journeys they travel is a requirement for good CX. But in a world where marketing, CX, and customer journeys are iterating faster than ever, how can you get deep understanding fast? In this session, we will share some interesting tactics that brands are dong with diary study tools to help them qualitatively understand the journeys, while using some quantitative data to fill in the gaps.

Speakers:
Kelly Price, Senior Analyst, Forrester

Journey analytics helps you understand customer journeys by stitching together many data sources. But how can you also use those insights to orchestrate journeys while they’re happening?

Speakers:
Joana de Quintanilha, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester

The robots and AI get all the attention in the press, but it’s the humans in your workforce that will make the magic happen. Those humans have one superpower that the technology doesn’t possess: The spark of creativity. We’ll discuss what role creativity has in the day-to-day experience of an employee — how you encourage them to find it, what value it provides them, and how that value turns into energy for your organization and ultimately your customers.

Speakers:
James L. McQuivey, PhD, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Salesforce changed the way enterprise software is bought, making it easier than ever for customers to buy and for happy customers to buy even more. However, this approach also makes it easy for customers to leave. That’s one reason why Salesforce doesn’t leave customer retention to chance. In this session you’ll hear about the programs and practices this iconic firm uses to keep its customers happy, and keep its happy customers.

Speakers:
Tony Rodoni, Executive Vice President, Customer Experience, Salesforce

The global pandemic shifted how brands engage and interact with buyers – and some changes may be permanent. Content marketers must reevaluate their strategies in the face of reduced resources, lower engagement rates, and increased competition – especially via digital channels. Join Christine Brozek and Dean Davison as they walk through building a successful content marketing strategy based on the following three principles: [1] Empathy: Humanize your thought leadership content on customers’ changing challenges., [2] Scrutiny: Demonstrate the business value of your solution during the heightened scrutiny in current market conditions. and [3] Unity: Anchor content to constant themes and consistent stories in order to do more with less and nurture brand advocates.

Speakers:
Christine Brozek, Director, Principal Consultant, Forrester
Dean Davison, Principal Consultant, Forrester

Nearly two-thirds of consumers consider brands’ moral, social, and political values when choosing whether to do business with them. Unfortunately, companies lack a methodical approach to values, leading to high-profile flubs. Should your company bring values into its business model? If so, how intensely should it express those values? It depends. During this interactive session, Rick will guide attendees through Forrester’s Values-Based Experience Framework so they can decide which approach to values is best for their company.

Speakers:
Rick Parrish, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Often times there’s a disconnect between business and development teams, for example marketing might want the latest UI design but their software development teams might rather focus on drawing down technical debt and choosing which to do isn’t always easily. But when teams look at all these priorities in terms of expected business value, these teams can find common ground to prioritize work and drive measurable outcomes to judge their effectiveness.

Speakers:
Christopher Condo, Principal Analyst, Forrester

There is a raging debate about whether a business-to-business-to-consumer company should focus its attention on serving the direct customer – an employee of a business – or the indirect customer, who is the end user of the product or service. This presents a dilemma for industries as diverse as health insurance, financial services, and auto manufacturing. This session will discuss the decision firms made, why they made it, and how that’s working out for a group of industry experts.

Speakers:
Judy Weader, Senior Analyst, Forrester
Jeff Youngs, VP, Client Experience, First Command Financial Services
Gratia Carver, Chief Experience Officer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City

Automating customer service will help you scale but will backfire if you dehumanize customer service interactions. How can you make the most of these technologies while not losing out?

Speakers:
Karine Cardona-Smits, Senior Analyst, Customer Experience, Forrester
Ian Jacobs, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Technology will have a staggering impact on the way we work as 80% of jobs will be transformed by artificial intelligence by 2030. Today’s knowledge workers and creative problem solvers will have a new set of tools, technologies, and possibilities at their disposal. Enter the Human + Machine creative team, a new working dynamic where workers and robots work side-by-side create experiences, products, services and communication that delight customers. Join this track to learn what the creative problem-solving workforce of the future looks and what jobs and skills cx and marketing leaders must invest in.

Speakers:
Jay Pattisall, Principal Analyst, Forrester
Allyson Witherspoon, VP, Marketing Communications & Media, Nissan Motor Corporation
Scott Tegethoff, President OMD NY Global Accounts, OMD.com

Employees aren’t just “resources” — they’re central to an ecosystem of value. This ecosystem comprises four audiences: Businesses, employees, customers, and society. When your strategy for the future of work lines up across all four of these audiences, you’ll be most successful: Alignment leads them to compound one another, making each of them even more valuable.

Speakers:
J.P. Gownder, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester