customer experience
Customer experience is a key driver of loyalty, satisfaction, and revenue. Mastering it is a complex and ever-changing proposition. Forrester’s insights aid organizations to succeed with customer experience.
Discover how Forrester supports customer experience leaders.
Insights
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Retention-As-A-Service Is An Intriguing Idea — Here’s What It Actually Means
At Gainsight’s Pulse conference last month, CEO Chuck Ganapathi shared a question he said every customer-facing leader is hearing from their board: How do I use AI to drive higher retention? That framing was intentional, and it wasn’t set up to be a product announcement; it was a positioning statement for the company. And it set the stage for everything that followed. The company introduced a brand-new focus at […]
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Customer Success And Customer Experience: The Difference Is More Than Semantic
Customer success (CS) and customer experience (CX) are often discussed interchangeably, and for good reason. Both exist to improve customer outcomes, and both play essential roles across the customer lifecycle — but they are not interchangeable. Much like a paramedic and an ER physician, CS and CX contribute at different moments and with different tools […]
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Build The Human Foundations Before You Scale AI
CX Summit EMEA explored the real AI opportunity: building trust, strengthening foundations, and reimagining experiences — not just making them more efficient.
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Total Experience Score, 2026: Growth Breaks When Experiences Fragment
The brands pulling ahead aren’t optimizing brand, customer, and employee experience in isolation — they’re aligning them into a system that drives measurable growth. Forrester’s 2026 global Total Experience Score and research show that when promise, delivery, and the people behind both move in sync, companies build strong, sustainable momentum.
What is customer experience?
Customer experience refers to every interaction a person has with a company, from initial awareness through purchase and ongoing support. It includes emotional, technical, and service components. A great experience increases loyalty, advocacy, and lifetime value.
Why does customer experience matter so much?
In a crowded marketplace, products or services can often be matched by competitors. What sets brands apart is how customers feel and how easy it is to engage. Positive experiences drive repeat business, reduce churn, and boost word-of-mouth growth.
How can organizations improve customer experience?
They begin by mapping key journeys to understand pain points and moments of truth. Listening to feedback through surveys, qualitative interviews, and usage data surfaces opportunities. Then, cross- functional teams must collaborate to iterate and remove friction.
What metrics should companies use to measure customer experience?
While the “best” metrics will depend on a company’s goals, core metrics include Net Promoter Score, customer satisfaction, customer effort score, and retention rates. Observing behavioral metrics such as repeat purchase rate and churn also helps. Together, they offer a holistic view of how customers feel and act.
How does Forrester help companies enhance their customer experience?
Forrester provides research, benchmarks, and frameworks that guide leaders to prioritize and execute CX initiatives. We help align experience goals with business strategy and validate investments. Clients use our insights to accelerate transformation and embed customer centricity across the organization.
Blog
Forrester’s EX Index Completes The Total Experience Picture
Most organizations manage employee, customer, and brand experience in silos, obscuring how they connect to influence business outcomes. Forrester’s new EX Index reveals how employee experience shapes brand equity, customer loyalty, and growth.
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Highlights From UserTesting’s Crafted 2026: Build Fast, Build Right
On May 28, we joined the research community at UserTesting’s Crafted event in Seattle. The energy was palpable, with passionate researchers and designers eager to evolve their craft responsibly and effectively in the age of AI. A clear takeaway of the event was that building fast doesn’t matter if you’re not building the right thing. As AI makes creation easier, decisions […]
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Have We Turned The Corner On CX Quality?
While North America shows early signs of recovery following the last few years of decline, the picture elsewhere remains less clear. Read the main takeaways from our 2026 global Customer Experience Index rankings.
CX Scores Are Up. Why Isn’t Growth? Bridge The Brand-CX Gap.
Stop guessing. This guide shows whether acquisition or retention is holding you back and where brand promise and CX delivery break down — so you can prioritize the right fixes.
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Forrester’s 2026 BX Index™ Rankings: North American Brands Make Gains; Europe And Asia Are More Constrained
Forrester’s 2026 Brand Experience Index reveals where brand perception is strengthening and where it’s stalling. Read about the high-level shifts across regions and industries this year.
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Unlock Your AI Opportunity At Forrester’s AI Forums
Join us in Singapore or Sydney to learn how to turn AI momentum into measurable advantage. Our AI Forums are geared toward technology, security, marketing, and customer experience leaders and teams.
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Zendesk Relate 2026 Showed Why Agentic Customer Service Starts With Knowledge
Zendesk Relate 2026 showed that agentic customer service depends on structured knowledge, new service engineering roles, and operational readiness for AI execution.
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AI Is Rewriting Financial Guidance — Are Financial Services Firms Keeping Up?
AI is redefining what consumers expect from financial guidance, but trust remains the limiter. As AI takes on more advanced roles, financial institutions must balance personalization and efficiency with transparency, governance, and human oversight.
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Qualtrics Buys Press Ganey Forsta For $6.75 Billion … So Now What?
Back in October of last year, we blogged about Qualtrics’ planned acquisition of Press Ganey Forsta and what that would mean for clients of Qualtrics, Press Ganey (PG) Forsta, and InMoment, both inside and outside of the healthcare industry. Now that the deal is done, $6.75 billion later, there’s even more to discuss, so let’s […]
AI Is Everywhere — Customer Value Isn’t. Here’s How To Change That.
AI urgency is testing budgets as customer experience sits at all-time lows. AI Forum Sydney shows CX and technology leaders how to redirect AI spend into durable customer value and competitive advantage.
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Everlane Is The Next Millennial Brand To Fall
The Next Millennial Domino Falls When reports emerged that SHEIN had acquired Everlane, the other shoe dropped. Like the recently departed Allbirds, Everlane was once the poster child for a new kind of Millennial consumerism. It promised radical transparency, clean design, ethical sourcing, and a rejection of disposable fashion culture. Along with a generation of […]
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From My Work With CX Leaders: Three Shifts Defining 2026
The CX discipline is changing, not fading. These were the takeaways from my recent conversations with CX leaders.
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How To Build A Premium Airline In The Sky Of Sameness
Even in today’s environment of rock-bottom consumer sentiment, there remains a clear opportunity to grow with a premium product, with a vast middle willing to pay a premium for something sufficiently differentiated to justify the privilege.
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Never Stop Learning: What Future Leaders Taught Us
Our first-ever Forrester Future Leaders program, at B2B Summit North America last month, provided meaningful lessons — and a great deal of optimism about the future of GTM.
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The Most Expensive Customer Complaint Is The One You Ignore
Many organizations treat complaints as routine service issues — yet they often reveal something far more pernicious. Learn a more strategic and productive way for handling complaints at Forrester’s CX Summit EMEA on June 8–10.
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Building The Human Foundation Of The AI-Powered Enterprise
As organizations rush to deploy AI, too many forget the people it’s meant to serve. A human‑first foundation is what separates AI that frustrates from AI that truly drives better experiences.
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How Google Pay Is Using UPI Circle To Reach Young Banking Customers In India
If you’re a retail banking leader in India, your future customer may already be learning how digital money works — and it may not be through your bank. This isn’t a future scenario; it’s happening now. While bank digital teams debate how much control is “too much,” customers have been clear about what they want: […]
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Five Actionable Takeaways For CX Leaders In A Volatile World
Volatility has become the default setting for modern organizations: more change, less certainty, and far less time to get it “right” before the ground shifts again. Teams that anchor their work in business results, define how trust and decision-making work together, and use tools tactically are far better equipped to absorb volatility without freezing or fragmenting.
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