The 7th edition of the annual report brings insights from 1200 CX executives, including current challenges, success patterns and priority investment trends.

CMSWire, the world’s leading community of customer experience professionals created by Simpler Media Group (SMG), announced today the release of the 2023 State of the Digital Customer Experience report, which provides an authoritative view of the current forces shaping the digital customer experience marketplace and practitioner landscape.

In the seventh edition of the annual report, the CMSWire Insights team uncovered perspective and on the ground facts from more than 1200 customer experience leaders and practitioners, all of whom submitted survey responses from July through September 2022. The report highlights the current state of the digital customer experience – both challenges and opportunities – and offers insight into what’s next and how companies are navigating current shifts in consumer behavior.

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“It’s been a remarkable transformation over the past few years in the effectiveness of tools and platforms for DCX.”

— Sarah Kimmel, VP of Research, Simpler Media Group

Key takeaways include:

– Digital CX continues to evolve as a priority. Seventy-nine percent of respondents say DCX is extremely or very important, while confidence in tools increased to a record level, indicating a maturing set of available customer experience technologies.
Levels of investment in DCX are holding steady, and budgetary challenges remain, but DCX teams still intend to continue their investments over the next two years.

– The DCX tech stack is diverse, with on average, 29 different platforms, tools and services being used. Organizations with effective tools are using more advanced solutions and are six times more likely to have a modern Digital Experience Platform (DXP) in place than organizations who report their toolset needs work.

– The COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst for DCX; 61% of organizations say DCX has gotten “significantly” or “slightly” better since the pandemic, and an increasing number are also acknowledging significant changes to their CX strategy, team and budget.

– More senior leaders are now taking responsibility for DCX technology investment decisions than marketing or technology teams, but when they’re in charge, tools are more than twice as likely to be reported as “needing work” rather than “working well.”

SMG/CMSWire’s CEO Brice Dunwoodie reflected on the report findings, commenting, “Despite digital customer experience practices and tech stacks maturing in many organizations, success reflects an elaborate tapestry of organizational alignments, business processes and sophisticated technology stacks. There are plenty of challenges to go around — from siloed systems to budgetary constraints to the limited effectiveness of many measurement techniques. No matter where we look and who we speak with, we see low-hanging fruit and room for improvement. Combine this with the moving target of consumer behaviors and desires, and the DCX universe remains highly dynamic and filled with significant rewards for your investments.”

In addition, SMG’s VP of Research & Insights, Sarah Kimmel, commented, “It’s been a remarkable transformation over the past few years in the effectiveness of tools and platforms for DCX. Since 2019 the number of CX professionals who say their tools are working well has doubled, and those who say their tools need work was cut in half. There’s still quite a lot of room for improvement here, but 61% of CX professionals say their customer experience has improved compared to pre-pandemic.

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