We’ve just closed the curtain on another successful CX Summit EMEA. Each year, I come away feeling energized, inspired, and profoundly grateful. I learn so much from our attendees and the many conversations throughout the event, and I’m perpetually awed by the dedication and coordination it takes to pull this off. So to everyone involved: Thank you!

This year, we previewed a new Forrester concept that we’ve named the total experience. Total experience encompasses both brand and customer experience (CX), and it shapes the perception that prospects and customers form based on their cumulative interactions with a brand over time. Since brand equity and CX have a compounding effect, companies that improve them both together see a significant revenue uplift.

We’ll soon be releasing new research on the total experience, and we’ll unveil our new Total Experience Score at CX Summit North America in Nashville later this month. Brand and CX are two sides of the same coin. Delivering on the total experience promise requires CX, marketing, and digital teams to tightly align — something that we at Forrester have been talking about for some time.

The Time To Transform Experiences Is Now

You might think that it’s the wrong time to challenge organizations to unite and reimagine their brand and customer experience, given the deeply uncertain business climate. The total experience concept is intentionally bold. CX quality is down across regions and sectors. Too many brands have been fixated on their CX scores rather than the actual experiences that those scores are supposed to reflect. Experience is in need of a reset, and it’s time to go big.

Laying the foundation for the total experience takes a collective mindset shift and new forms of collaboration. In a keynote earlier today, a few of my colleagues from across Forrester’s CX, marketing, and digital research teams described the type of work required to replace silos between prospect-focused and customer-focused teams with a shared focus on the end-to-end experience. Building a unified total experience will also take sharing customer insights and adopting new ways of measuring success that support an integrated, continuous experience focus.

Humans + AI Must Work In Lockstep

The technology needed to power standout experiences is here — and it keeps getting better. As my colleague Aurélie L’Hostis recently wrote, advancing and emerging technologies are accelerating the transformation of digital experiences and reshaping how firms interact with consumers and deliver value. AI-powered interfaces such as chatbots and virtual agents will soon actively observe, learn, and communicate with consumers. Over time, experiences will become more intuitive and empowering, helping companies deliver on the total experience promise.

But for this to go right, bolstering the human side of the equation is paramount. At CX Summit, we highlighted the importance of:

  • Sharpening AI skills. Success with AI depends on human capabilities. Leaders need to understand their teams’ AI readiness and foster a culture of learning around AI, providing training, encouraging skill sharing, and ensuring ethical use.
  • Gaining trust. The degree to which your customers trust your AI will make or break your AI initiatives, and the degree to which they trust your brand will determine how much data they’re willing to share for personalized experiences. Understand what drives consumer trust in AI and embrace these trustworthy practices.
  • Shoring up CX fundamentals. As you plan and build innovative new experiences, you can’t lose sight of what customers are trying to accomplish with your company. Journey mapping remains essential to understanding the steps your customers take and removing points of friction that they may be experiencing.

Where Will Your Total Experience Lead You?

If you’re a Forrester client, be sure to look out for our total experience research in the coming weeks. Whether or not you’re a client, we’d love to partner with you to build and deliver a total experience that’s authentic to your organization.

Thank you again to all who made this year’s CX Summit EMEA a success. See you next year.