CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Aug. 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The combination of growing consumer expectations, rising churn rates, and more options with lower barriers to switch is placing a company's customer experience (CX) center stage. CX leaders grow revenue faster than CX laggards, drive higher brand preference, and can charge more for their products. But according to Forrester's US 2017 Customer Experience Index (CX Index™), CX quality worsened between 2016 and 2017: Twice as many brand scores fell as rose, and losses were bigger than gains.

Based on a survey of nearly 120,000 US online adult consumers, Forrester's CX Index measures and ranks more than 300 US brands across 21 industries to identify how well a brand's customer experience strengthens the loyalty of its customers. Key findings include that not a single industry average improved this year and that emotion continues to have a bigger influence on customer loyalty than effectiveness or ease in nearly every industry.

"If brands want to break away from the pack and become CX leaders, they must focus on emotion," Cliff Condon, chief research and product officer at Forrester, said. "Best-in-class brands average 17 emotionally positive experiences for every negative experience, while the lowest-performing brands provided only two emotionally positive experiences for each negative one. Emotion is critical to a brand's bottom line. For example, the TV service provider industry had the largest percentage of customers who felt annoyed of any industry in the study. Among those annoyed customers, only 17% plan to stay with the brand, 12% plan to increase their spending, and 11% will advocate for the brand. A large TV service provider leaves $104 million on the table for every one-point decline in its CX Index score."

Forrester's CX Index reveals the companies that are recognized as best-in-class — firms that are in the top 5% of CX quality across industries in their regions. USAA topped the 2017 best-in-class list this year, with the following companies in the top 15 (in alphabetical order): BB&T, Cricket Wireless, Edward Jones, Etsy, The Hartford, Homewood Suites by Hilton, Lexus, MetroPCS Communications, Navy Federal Credit Union, Omni Hotels & Resorts, QVC, Regions Bank, The Vanguard Group, and Zappos.com.

Contact us to learn more about how Forrester's CX Index can help your business.

About Forrester's CX Index
Forrester's CX Index is the most complete and powerful CX tool in the market today. The CX Index gives businesses a deep and actionable understanding of the quality of their customers' experiences, competitive benchmark data so that business and technology leaders know how they stack up against their peers, and the ability to model the improvements that will have the biggest impact on revenue.

For more information, please visit http://forr.com/cxindex.

About Forrester
Forrester (Nasdaq: FORR) is one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world. We work with business and technology leaders to develop customer-obsessed strategies that drive growth. Forrester's unique insights are grounded in annual surveys of more than 675,000 consumers and business leaders worldwide, rigorous and objective methodologies, and the shared wisdom of our most innovative clients. Through proprietary research, data, custom consulting, exclusive executive peer groups, and events, the Forrester experience is about a singular and powerful purpose: to challenge the thinking of our clients to help them lead change in their organizations.

Contact

Forrester
Jenna Vassallo, 617-613-5746
Public Relations Manager
jvassallo@forrester.com

SOURCE Forrester Research, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.forrester.com