It’s autumn here in the US, and school is very much in session. Like my kids, learning has been top of the agenda for the past several months, as I heard briefings from and interviewed clients of the top customer experience (CX) strategy consulting firms in the world. As with the evaluation in 2022, the field was narrowed to vendors with a breadth of CX strategy-related competencies, a large global footprint, and a high amount of revenue earned from developing CX strategies. Without further ado, here are the top five things I learned over the last few months of conducting The Forrester Wave™: Customer Experience Strategy Consulting Services, Q4 2024.

Lesson #1: As the market matures, it’s converging on a single spot. Right now, that spot looks an awful lot like a global firm that considers CX and ROI to be best buddies, that has strong business and technical expertise, and that is investing heavily in AI that advances both its own and its customers’ CX ambitions. This is great news for potential customers of these firms, because it increases the likelihood of getting access to a broad set of capabilities regardless of the firm they choose. It’s not great news, however, for the firms that compete in this market, because it creates more pressure for them to identify and communicate their differentiating factor. We’re not at total convergence yet; that said, I’ll be very curious to see if we observe another big maturity leap when it’s time to refresh this research in 2026 or if it’ll look more like the market took a smaller hop.

Lesson #2: Specialties, particularly localization and language competencies, are a big deal for these firms’ customers. Many reference customers interviewed for this research cited the importance of their vendor’s local teams, particularly when the local team’s language skills enabled easier design and fielding of research, product and comms design, and collaboration with their own employees. Much like the difference between culturally competent translations and straight translations, these specialties make the strategy engagements sing instead of falling flat. Firms competing in this market should tout their global capabilities (or build them, if they don’t have them), and customers should ask for examples of work that demonstrate the most critical capabilities that they require.

Lesson #3: Strategy consulting customers expect progress on meaningful KPIs. Every reference customer was able to cite the ways in which they wanted or expected to measure the value of the engagement, and the ones that had the most positive things to say about their vendor partner were those whose strategy consulting engagements achieved or beat those KPI targets. These KPIs ranged from financial goals, such as increased revenue, profit, or margin, to cultural goals, such as the adoption of new processes or standards. Reference customers who experienced additional benefits above and beyond what was originally scoped often cited those when speaking positively about the value of the engagement.

Lesson #4: “It’s the economy, stupid.” Those famous words that guided a US presidential campaign 30+ years ago still ring true. Of the reference customers who had a clear sense of what their CX strategy consulting spend would look like over the next 12 months, an overwhelming majority said they would maintain or decrease their spend with their vendor partner. The often-stated rationale: Pressure from an uncertain global economy is limiting their ability to spend big on this next year. Firms competing in this market should redouble their efforts to explain the financial benefits that previous customers have earned from their strategy engagements, and potential customers should demand examples of prior such successes if they’re not offered right from the beginning.

Lesson #5: Who you get on your vendor-side team will have a huge impact on the engagement’s success. While a good number of reference customers had positive things to say about individual members of their vendor’s team, some had legitimate complaints about how their vendor partner staffed their engagement and the resulting impact. The most common issue was vendors swapping staff around, whether due to rotations, attrition, or personality conflicts. Reference customers’ praise flowed for vendor partners whose teams communicated with them proactively, frequently, and transparently. Vendors that used “consultant-speak” or that the customer had to chase for updates got less rosy reviews from reference customers, and it often affected other aspects of how they viewed the overall quality of the firm.

There are still more lessons to be learned from this year’s evaluation, so I recommend reading the full report — available to all Forrester clients now. Use the “Compare vendors” button at the top of the report to find your best-fit vendor based on the criteria that matter most for your firm. Still have questions? I’m happy to chat on a guidance session or inquiry about the results of this evaluation. And with that … class dismissed!