Three-quarters of business leaders agree that improving the customer experience (CX) is their top strategic priority, yet nearly half of CX practitioners acknowledge that their CX programs are focused on measuring and plugging holes in their current experience. Worse, another 30% spend their time trying to prevent bad experiences from happening in the first place.

CX pros need to strike a new balance between improving existing experiences and pushing for bolder, innovation-based efforts that uncover and deliver new value to customers. These efforts should focus on enhancing the emotional appeal of experiences.  

Emotion — one of the three core tenets of CX quality — has the biggest impact on customer loyalty in 17 of the 18 industries surveyed for Forrester’s Customer Experience Index (CX Index™). But what defines a great emotional customer experience? Forrester examines three of the top 15 brands in Forrester’s CX Index — Etsy, Lexus, and Discover — using survey data and qualitative analysis to define a great emotional customer experience.

Learn more about the research here and here.