“Help us help you.” This was the call to action we put out in July and August of 2022 to voice-of-the-customer (VoC) and customer experience (CX) measurement leaders around the world. We asked CX professionals responsible for VoC and CX measurement activities to tell us about their teams’ scope and structure, practices, and challenges. In return, we are sharing our findings to help organizations understand best practices and benchmark their own efforts.

The Good News Is That There’s Some Good News!

  • Fifty-four percent of respondents indicated that they are effectively collecting employee and/or partner feedback about CX. This is welcome news, because employee feedback (link for Forrester client access only) provides context for how customers perceive their experiences; helps identify process, policy, and technology hurdles that hinder experience delivery; and gives insight into the quality of employee experiences.
  • Sixty-nine percent of respondents said that they can effectively generate insights into the reasons behind changes in CX metrics. Understanding why metrics go up or down helps organizations assess the customer impact of business decisions and prioritize CX projects.
  • Seventy percent of respondents said that their organization believes that the VoC/CX program is vital to continued success. It is encouraging to see broad acknowledgement that customer feedback and CX measurement are critical functions.

The Bad News Is That VoC And CX Measurement Efforts Have Serious Gaps

  • Many respondents told us that performance on CX metrics is tied to employee financial incentives. We know that giving a bonus based on CX metrics performance is a hazardous strategy, however.
  • Only 26% of respondents said that they are pretesting surveys. It is hard enough to get people to take surveys — don’t waste the opportunity by asking unclear questions. Pretesting helps make sure that your survey will be understood — and can save money and time on the back end.
  • Four in 10 VoC and CX measurement programs fail to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of their own program. VoC and CX leaders can’t count on their organizations continuing to value these programs. Faced with economic headwinds, CX teams need to focus on showing ROI now more than ever.

Forrester clients: Stay tuned for a series of reports about this survey, featuring much more information on technology, challenges, and maturity for VoC and CX programs.

Survey Methodology

Forrester’s 2022 State Of VoC And CX Measurement Survey was fielded online in July and August of 2022. The goal of the survey was to gather global insights about VoC and/or CX measurement programs. Key survey topics included scope and scale, VoC practices, CX measurement practices, technology, and overall maturity and challenges. Five hundred and forty-seven global respondents participated in the survey, and 265 global respondents completed it. Exact sample sizes are provided on a question-by-question basis.

To be eligible to participate in this survey, respondents had to identify as either owning, managing, or working within their organization’s existing VoC and/or CX measurement program. For quality assurance, we screened respondents to ensure that they met minimum standards in terms of job responsibilities. Respondent incentives included a summary of the survey results.

This survey used a self-selected group of respondents knowledgeable about VoC and CX measurement and is therefore not random. The data is not guaranteed to be representative of the population, and unless otherwise noted, statistical data is intended to be used for descriptive and not inferential purposes. While nonrandom, the survey remains a valuable tool for understanding where users are today and where the industry is headed.