Like the proverbial frog that doesn’t feel the water becoming increasingly hotter, many North American brands are inching into more treacherous positions with their customers’ loyalty as measured by Forrester’s Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) rankings. This year’s just-released results show that US and Canada consumer perceptions of CX quality have dropped for a fourth consecutive year and now sit at a new all-time low.

Forrester’s CX Index methodology measures how well a brand’s CX strengthens the loyalty of its customers. Specifically, it evaluates the ease, effectiveness, and emotional components of customers’ interactions with a brand. This year, we analyzed more than 275,000 customers’ perceptions of 469 brands across 12 industries and 13 countries. And for the first time this year, we also published Brand Experience Index (BX Index™) rankings as well as introducing the Total Experience Score — which combines BX and CX — for these brands.

Persistent Challenges Plague CX Quality In North America

In the US, 25% of the brands we evaluated in 2024 and 2025 had statistically significant losses while only 7% improved. The result in Canada was fairly similar: 18% of brands declined and just 1% improved. The remainder of the brands fared around the same as they did last year although, concerningly, one-quarter of the North American brands that declined in 2025 also fell in 2024.

While some of the factors pulling scores down are specific to this year (e.g., customers struggling to find value in a particularly tumultuous economic environment), many remain unchanged from last year. These include a drop in employee experience, a decreased focus on customer obsession, and disappointing implementations of potentially game-changing technology (including AI). Also contributing is the persistent gap between executives’ perception of the quality of their CX and how customers perceive their experiences. This misalignment diminishes the focus that organizations need to maintain on delivering easy, effective, and emotionally positive experiences.

A Mixed Picture Abroad And A Silver Lining In Europe

Outside of North America, this year’s results are uneven. In Asia Pacific — where we looked at brands in Australia, Singapore, and India — the scores for 37% of brands fell between 2024 and 2025 while just 5% rose. (The one industry that improved in the region was Singapore’s investment firm industry.) Europe was the only region where brands registering gains outnumbered those showing declines. Across the region, 7% of brands we evaluated in 2024 and 2025 improved their scores this year while 2% declined.

The Time Is Now To Turn Around CX

By and large, the shifts in CX scores were not dramatic. Most customers feel slightly less positive and, instead, more neutral about their experiences. So while the water is getting a little hotter, brands still have opportunities to reverse the trend. But given the multiyear decline we’re seeing, brands must act now — before decaying perceptions reach a boiling point and start significantly impacting customer loyalty behaviors.

If you’re a Forrester client, read the full report with detailed breakdowns by brand, country, and industry.