Executive Summary
Forrester’s Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) is designed to measure the quality of customer experiences, assess customer loyalty, determine which drivers have the biggest influence on customers’ perceptions of CX quality, and provide a CX benchmark. The CX Index connects quality and loyalty measures with revenue models, giving Forrester clients the ability to use CX Index insights to guide CX investments that produce the greatest revenue return. The CX Index annual benchmark surveys are fielded each year during Q1 and Q2.
Why Forrester Writes CX Index Research
Customer experience leaders grow revenue faster than CX laggards, drive higher brand preference, and can charge more for their products. To become a CX leader, companies need to understand how customers perceive their experiences, the strengths and weaknesses of their experiences, where to focus improvements, and how they compare to competitors. Forrester’s CX Index research provides those insights within a market and industry context.
The CX Index™ Process: The current CX Index methodology has been used for over seven years. The CX Index survey measures CX quality, customer loyalty, CX driver performance, and several other factors about the experience and the customer. The CX Index algorithm models the relationship between CX quality and customer loyalty. Because loyalty dynamics vary by industry, the CX quality metrics are weighted in the algorithm based on how much impact they have on loyalty in each industry per market.
CX Index survey respondents self-identify as a current customer who has directly interacted with selected brands in the past 12 months. If respondents qualify for multiple brands within an industry, they are randomly assigned to only one brand within that industry. Respondents are asked questions about the experiences they have had with an assigned brand. The CX Index algorithm is applied to each respondent’s answers to calculate a CX Index score. A company’s CX Index score is the average of CX Index scores given to the brand by each of its customers in the survey sample.
Globally, Forrester covers nearly 500 brands across 14 industries in 11 markets. Forrester maintains control over all brand, industry, and market decisions. Companies cannot pay to be included or excluded from a CX Index annual benchmark survey, nor can they purchase favorable CX Index scores and ranking results. Forrester independently acquires a nationally representative sample in each market and does not use customer lists supplied by any company included in the CX Index annual benchmark surveys.
