I’ve previously discussed the idea that good research must be connected, continuous, and timely. To achieve this, researchers need strong partnerships with their stakeholders and access to the right resources, including the right research tools. Yet research teams often face roadblocks that prevent this from happening. Clients often tell me:

“We don’t have access to our customers, and even if we did, we can’t bother them for each study.”

“We conduct research, but we struggle to communicate it effectively to the broader organization.”

“We need to do more qualitative research to understand our customers but don’t have time and resources.”

If this sounds like your team or organization, it may be a time to pause and think whether your current research tools support your goals, as well as how using the right experience research platform (XRP) could make a difference. Forrester defines XRPs as:

Platforms used by companies to collect qualitative data to weigh alongside quantitative data in the decision-making process when building products or services.

What’s The Value Of An Experience Research Platform?

XRPs help companies discover and define opportunities in a target market, test concepts and prototypes, and evaluate the user and customer experience of their products and services. XRPs do this by facilitating recruitment of customers and target audiences, offering moderated and unmoderated remote research methods to observe their behavior and collect feedback, and increasing speed to insights by providing powerful features for data analysis. They help you understand customers in depth, reduce risk in product and service decisions, and scale your experience research in your company.

To choose the right experience research platform for your organization, you must understand your current and future research needs along with the current dynamics in the experience research market. My latest report, The Experience Research Platforms Landscape, Q3 2025, helps you understand the benefits you can expect from an XRP and decide the type of platform that’s right for your company. It includes a list of 16 notable vendors offering these platforms, the key use cases that these vendors support, and functionalities to look for when evaluating potential offerings.

What’s Next For This Research?

Next on my research agenda is a Forrester Wave™. This in-depth evaluation of the top XRP vendors will serve as a detailed guide for buyers considering their options.

How Do I Get In Touch?

If you’re a Forrester client, read my latest report, The Experience Research Platforms Landscape, Q3 2025. After you take a look, if you’d like to ask me questions or work through your buying decision, you can set up a conversation with me. You can also follow or connect with me on LinkedIn if you’d like.