Report: The State of Customer Experience Management, 2014

We just published a Temkin Group report, The State of CX Management, 2014. It examines the CX efforts within more than 200 large companies. Here’s the executive summary:

We surveyed more than 200 large companies and found an abundance of Customer Experience (CX) ambition and activity. Most companies have a CX executive leading the charge, a central team coordinating significant CX activities, and a staff of six to 10 full-time CX professionals. Using Temkin Group’s CX competency assessment, we found that only 10% of companies have reached the highest two levels of customer experience, although this does represent a slight increase from last year. Most firms struggle most to master Employee Engagement and Compelling Brand Values. When compared with CX laggards, CX leaders have stronger financial results, enjoy better CX leadership, and implement more successful employee engagement efforts. Executives in companies with stronger CX competencies also tend to focus more on delighting customers and less on cutting costs.

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The percentage of large organizations that have reached the two highest levels of customer experience maturity has grown from 6% in 2013 to 10% this year. During the same period, the percentage of companies in the lowest level of maturity has dropped from 40% to 31%.

Here are some additional findings from the research:

• Companies with good or very good ratings in Purposeful Leadership rose from 39% to 45%, the largest improvement for any customer experience competency.
• The research also revealed a significant focus on improvement. While only 6% of companies believe that their organization currently delivers industry-leading customer experience, 58% have a goal to be an industry-leader within three years.
• Sixty-five percent of companies have a senior executive in charge of customer experience.
• More than half of companies have at least six full-time customer experience professionals.
• Almost two-thirds of respondents rate customer experience with phone agent as good or very good, the highest rated interaction. Less than 30% rate mobile phone and cross-channel experiences at that level.
• The top obstacle to customer experience is the same as it has been for four years, “other competing priorities.”
• We compared companies that have strong customer experience maturity with those that are weaker and found that customer experience leaders have better financial results, have more senior executive commitment, and focus more on their organization’s culture.

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The bottom line: Most companies are in early stages of CX maturity, but are getting better