Top Canadian brands continue to deliver more emotionally positive experiences

Forrester’s  Canada 2022 Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) reveals that customer experience (CX) quality among Canadian brands has dropped following three years of stability. At the pandemic’s start, Canadian brands were able to adapt quickly and transform digital experiences in response to changing customer needs. However, 24% of Canadian brands in this year’s CX Index struggled to maintain CX quality over the past 12 months, based on Canadian customers’ perceptions of 101 brands surveyed.

While investment firms and retailers both dominated the 2022 elite brands — the top 5% of brands in the entire CX Index — both industries declined in this year’s rankings. CX Index data for Canada further reveals that emotion is the most important dimension of CX quality across industries as it shapes customer trust and engenders brand loyalty. This year’s elite brands — IG Wealth Management, Well.ca, Etsy, RBC Dominion Securities, and CAA Insurance — delivered more than three times as many emotionally positive experiences for customers compared to other brands. In contrast, customers in the mass market automobile, multichannel bank, credit card, investment firms, and retail industries reported slightly fewer instances of feeling respected, valued, and appreciated — the most impactful positive emotions. Of the six companies that improved most in CX quality, five are in financial services.

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“Factors such as supply issues, staffing shortages, and rising costs are contributing to Canadian brands’ problems providing customer experiences at the same level as prior years,” said Rick Parrish, VP and research director at Forrester. “One of the key reasons for the decline in CX quality across Canadian brands is a drop in delivering emotionally positive experiences. To cement brand loyalty, leaders must put their customers at the forefront of their strategy and operations to prioritize their emotional needs.”

Conducted for the seventh year in a row, Forrester’s Customer Experience Benchmark Survey, which collects data to calculate Forrester CX Index scores, is based on more than 41,000 Canadian customers across 101 brands and nine industries. Forrester’s proprietary Customer Experience Index methodology provides the data and insights needed to assess CX quality, understand how CX impacts loyalty intentions, and prioritize improvements that drive revenue. Even a minor improvement to a brand’s customer experience quality can add tens of millions of dollars of revenue by reducing customer churn and increasing share of wallet. Forrester’s Customer Experience CX Index rankings and results reports are accessible within the Forrester Decisions portfolio of research services. Clients of Forrester Decisions for Customer Experience and Forrester Decisions for B2C Marketing Executives have access to the CX Index Extended Data Benchmark to help prioritize improvements based on industrywide trends and impact on customer loyalty.

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