Forrester: The Time Is Now For CX And Marketing Professionals To Transform Customer Experience

New Research To Be Unveiled At CX North America 2020 Will Help Organizations Recalibrate Customer Experience To Address Changing Customer Needs

Unprecedented levels of market uncertainty paired with new guidelines on how to serve customers during the pandemic are forcing brands to reimagine their interactions with customers. Aspects of customer experience (CX) that were integral to a brand experience before the pandemic are no longer valid and need to be revisited.

To help brands transform their customer experiences to become grounded in these changing customer needs, Forrester will unveil new research at its CX North America 2020 event, which will be held as a virtual experience from June 16–18, 2020. Forrester’s research shows that today’s consumers do not differentiate between a brand experience and customer experience. As a result, CX and marketing teams must work together to develop a unified vision and align resources to connect the brand promise and experience with the customer experience.

To foster stronger collaboration between these groups, at the event, Forrester will highlight key trends, share best practices, and unveil new research and data including Forrester’s 2020 Customer Experience Index (CX Index™), a ranking of consumer brands that also reveals the latest key drivers of exceptional CX.

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Key research themes that will be unveiled at CX North America 2020 include:

• Why CX leaders must work with their counterparts across the entire business, especially marketing, to truly improve CX. Every organization is part of a CX ecosystem that determines the quality of the CX. Marketing and CX teams have complementary expertise and must work together to create customer-centric experiences that deliver business results.
• Why identifying and delighting the right customers is critical to building a successful business. According to an analysis of CX Index data, Forrester has identified “devotees,” a type of customer who exhibits a high willingness to forgive the brand, to pay a premium to do business with the brand, and to go out of their way to receive goods and services from the brand.
• Why organizations must utilize the same customer-obsessed brand experience principles to elevate their employee experience. At the center of customer and employee experiences is brand. The brand’s purpose is to be the connective tissue that binds employees to the firm and gives them the impetus to extend that meaning into customers’ experiences. When employee experience (EX) derives from a brand mindset, the convergence creates brand ambassadors who live the brand and elevate CX.
• Why organizations must close the disconnect between data, insights, and actions to focus on what matters most to the firm’s business outcomes. Despite continued investments in data and analytics, there is lack of alignment between business and operations teams’ accountabilities and the metrics they need to make more informed decisions. Closing this disconnect is imperative to improving business outcomes.
• Why organizations need to know today what their customers will want tomorrow. An innovation must address a need to succeed — and the most ambitious innovation efforts often seek to address future needs. It is important to look ahead to anticipate customers’ future needs.

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“CX transformation efforts bring numerous benefits to an organization, including increased customer retention and greater cross-sell opportunities,” said Melissa Parrish, VP and group director at Forrester. “However, often CX professionals end up working in a silo and struggle to show how their efforts will produce business results. Our research will provide CX and marketing leaders with the necessary tools and frameworks that are required to build exceptional customer experiences that drive business outcomes.”

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