Temkin Group Research Forecasts the Evolution of Customer Experience Management

WABAN, Mass., Aug. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Temkin Group announces the release of its new research report, The Future of Customer Experience. The research examines how customer experience (CX) management has evolved and where it is heading. After passing through the initial stages of CX management evolution - CX Intrigue and CX Exuberance - the North American market recently entered into what Temkin Group has labeled the era of CX Professionalism where repeatable CX best practices are being codified.

The research shows that 59% of large companies have ambitions to be industry leaders in customer experience within three years. At the same time, Temkin Group estimates that there are more than 100,000 people in North America employed in full-time customer experience roles. Based on this significant ambition and the development of customer experience tools and techniques by the growing pool of customer experience professionals, many companies are building stronger overall customer experience management capabilities.

"Customer experience has hit a tipping point, with a critical mass of professionals defining repeatable practices and delivering strong ROI to their firms," states Bruce Temkin, author of the research and Managing Partner of Temkin Group.

The report highlights that companies are being motivated by a clearer understanding about the link between good customer experience and stronger business results. Temkin Group completed a study of 10,000 consumers that shows a strong correlation between CX and loyalty across 18 industries in the U.S. The report reveals that a company with $1 billion in annual sales can generate more than $300 million over three years with a modest improvement in customer experience.

As organizations improve, the Temkin Group report shows that they typically evolve through six stages of customer experience maturity:

• 1) Ignore: The company does not see customer experience as a key differentiator.
• 2) Explore: An ad-hoc group is established to understand how the company can improve customer experience.
• 3) Mobilize: A full-time executive leads the effort to improve customer experience and the company establishes a cross-functional governance system.
• 4) Operationalize: The company redesigns many of its operational processes using clear insights about customers.
• 5) Align: Customer experience behaviors are widespread across employees and they are supported by the company's standard measurement and incentive systems.
• 6) Embed: The company delivers great customer experience without focusing on it explicitly. It comes as a result of the entire organization being committed to the company's clear sense of purpose.

While companies are gaining customer experience maturity, technologies and processes are enabling new, innovative practices. The research report identifies eight emerging customer experience skills that companies will need to master over the next several years: Journey-centric alignment, mobile-infused experiences, predictive personalization, distributed contextual insights, federated CX capabilities, business rhythm integration, rejuvenated purposefulness, and promoter activation.

The report, The Future of Customer Experience, can be accessed from the blog Customer Experience Matters at ExperienceMatters.wordpress.com, as well as from the Temkin Group website, www.TemkinGroup.com.

For more information about Temkin Group, visit http://www.TemkinGroup.com.

About the author, Bruce Temkin:
Bruce Temkin is widely recognized as a customer experience thought leader and is Customer Experience Transformist and Managing Partner of Temkin Group. He is also the author of a very popular blog, Customer Experience Matters®. Prior to forming Temkin Group, he was a VP at Forrester Research for 12 years. Bruce is a highly demanded speaker who consistently receives high marks for his content-rich, entertaining keynote addresses. He is also the co-founder and Chair of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA.org), a global non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of customer experience management.

About Temkin Group:
Temkin Group is a leading customer experience research and consulting firm with one simple goal for its clients: increase customer loyalty by becoming more customer-centric. The company combines customer experience thought leadership with a deep understanding of the dynamics of large organizations to help senior executives accelerate their results.

For more information, contact:
Bruce Temkin
617-916-2075
[email protected].

This press release was issued through eReleases® Press Release Distribution. For more information, visit http://www.ereleases.com.

SOURCE Temkin Group