The Customer Experience Index, 2014

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The Customer Experience Index, 2014by Megan Burns, January 21, 2014

For: Customer Experience Professionals

Key TaKeaways

Laggards Made Big Leaps In CX QualityTwenty brands improved their scores in our Customer Experience Index by 10 points or more this year. Most big leaps came in industries that perform poorly overall -- health insurance, TV service, ISPs, and wireless service.

Leaders Held On But Face stiffer CompetitionBrands that have traditionally dominated our CXi -- like USAA, Southwest Airlines, and Courtyard by Marriott -- stayed at the top. Most even gained ground, though not as much as the laggards did. Some laggards, like Delta Airlines, closed the gap on industry leaders and are poised to wage a fierce battle for CX dominance in the months to come.

Discipline and Hard work Drove ImprovementsWhile macro factors like the economy and the weather likely contributed to this year’s gains, many brands shot up because they’ve been feverishly working to repair bad experiences. We saw enhanced products and services, personas that help employees understand customers, and technology that makes it easier for customers to accomplish their goals.

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For Customer experienCe proFessionals

wHy ReaD THIs RepORT

How good is the customer experience at your company — as rated by your own customers? This report helps answer that question by providing benchmarks of the quality of customer experience for 175 large US brands across 14 industries including retailers, hotels, banks, credit card providers, insurance firms, airlines, wireless service providers, and investment firms. We show the highest- and lowest-scoring companies and industries as well as the ones that moved up or down since our 2013 study. Customer experience professionals should use this report to understand their competitive environment and set goals for optimizing their customer experience management practices as they proceed along the path to customer experience maturity.

table of Contents

Forrester’s Customer experience Index, 2014

This year, The Laggards stepped Up

in Contrast, there Was little Change among industry leaders

Customer experience Discipline Drives Results

reCommendations

want Higher scores For your Firm? Move Up The path To CX Maturity

supplemental Material

notes & resources

as part of an online survey in Q4 2013, Forrester asked 7,538 us consumers about their interactions with airlines, banks, consumer electronics manufacturers, credit card providers, health insurance plans, hotels, insurance providers, internet service providers, investment firms, parcel shipping firms, rental car providers, retailers, tV service providers, and wireless service providers.

related research documents

the path to Customer experience maturityJune 27, 2013

the Customer experience index, 2013January 15, 2013

executive Q&a: Forrester’s Customer experience indexJanuary 4, 2013

The Customer experience Index, 2014Benchmarks: the Customer experience maturity playbookby megan Burnswith Harley manning, Carla o’Connor, and Colin Campbell

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the Customer experience index, 2014 2

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FORResTeR’s CUsTOMeR eXpeRIenCe InDeX, 2014

Improving customer experience can increase annual revenue by more than $1 billion for large wireless service providers, airlines, and hotels — and by tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars for firms in other industries.1 Forrester’s seventh annual Customer Experience Index (CXi) measures whether or not customer experience actually is improving at major US firms. To create the CXi, we:

■ Asked consumers to identify companies they do business with. Consumers selected the companies they work with most in 14 different industries. In all, we collected data on 248 North American organizations but limited our rankings to the brands for which we had at least 100 responses.

■ Posed three questions about each brand. Customers want a company to meet their needs, be easy to do business with, and be enjoyable to do business with — the three levels of the customer experience (CX) pyramid. We asked consumers how each brand they selected measured up on these dimensions (see Figure 1).

■ Calculated CXi scores for 175 brands. To calculate each brand’s CXi score, we subtracted the percentage of its customers who reported a bad experience from the percentage who reported a good experience for all three questions.2 The overall CXi is the average of those three results (see Figure 2).

Figure 1 Three Questions Drive The Customer Experience Index

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.109081

Forrester’s Customer Experience Index

“How effective were they at meeting your needs?”

“How easy were they to do business with?”

“How enjoyable were they to do business with?”

Meets needs

Easy

Enjoyable

“Thinking of your interactions with these firms over the past 90 days . . . ”




Figure 2 How We Calculate Customer Experience Index Scores

THIs yeaR, THe LaggaRDs sTeppeD Up

After calculating the CXi score for each brand, we analyzed the results. We found a pattern of strong upward movement by companies — and even entire industries — with histories of notably low scores.3

■ The overall number of “poor” and “very poor” brands declined dramatically. As in past reports, we grouped brands into five categories based on their scores: excellent (85 and higher), good (75 to 84), OK (65 to 74), poor (55 to 64), and very poor (less than 55).This year, the two bottom categories shrank to their lowest levels ever (see Figure 3). Only 10% of brands in 2014 received scores in the “poor” category, compared with 17% in 2013. The drop was even more dramatic in the “very poor” category: In 2013, 12 brands landed in this group, but only one brand did in 2014.

■ The lowest scoring industries saw the biggest rise in their averages. Every year, we calculate an industrywide average for each industry in our study. Almost half of the industries we looked at improved their averages by five points or more this year (see Figure 4). Some of the biggest jumps came in the four lowest scoring industries in 2013: health insurance plans, TV service providers, Internet service providers, and wireless service providers.4 Health insurers had the biggest increase (eight points), thanks in part to four standout brands. Both the TV service provider and Internet service provider industries jumped seven points. Why? Most brands in these two industries posted big improvements instead of just a few that broke away from the pack.


Example: Acme

CXi score: 77

Average

“Easy to do business with” criteria(on a scale of 1 [very dif�cult]

to 5 [very easy])

Chose4 or 5

Chose1 or 2

Netscore

75% 1% 74%

81% 1% 80%

82% 4% 78%

- =

- =

- =“Meets needs” criteria

(on a scale of 1 [didn’t meet any ofmy needs] to 5 [met all of my needs])

“Enjoyability” criteria(on a scale of 1 [not at all enjoyable]

to 5 [very enjoyable])

Note: Component scores for “meets needs,” “easy to do business with,” and “enjoyability” as well as dataabout the respondent population are available to Forrester Technographics® subscribers.




■ Some of last year’s lowest-rated brands showed jaw-dropping increases. This year, 20 individual brands in our study gained 10 points or more, most from our laggard industries (see Figure 5). Health insurance provider Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) earned the biggest improvement: 22 points. Charter Communications was one of a handful of brands to see big improvement in two different industries, gaining 21 points as an Internet service provider and 16 points as a TV service provider. Formerly low-scoring brands in banking and airlines also took big leaps forward. For example, Fifth Third Bank regained 17 of the 24 points it lost in last year’s dramatic plunge, while Delta Air Lines, US Airways, and United Airlines all shot up 13 points.

■ Only five brands posted double-digit declines. The number of big losers in this year’s study was comparatively small, dwarfed by the number of brands with big gains. What’s more, the biggest decrease — by Wyndham Hotels & Resorts — was just 12 points, which was 10 points less than the size of the biggest increase.

Figure 3 Distribution Of Customer Experience Index Scores, 2007 To 2014


2007 2014

Base: 175 large North American brands scored in Forrester’s Customer Experience Index, 2014;154 large North American brands scored in Forrester’s Customer Experience Index, 2013;160 large North American brands scored in Forrester’s Customer Experience Index, 2012;153 large North American brands scored in Forrester’s Customer Experience Index, 2011;133 large North American brands scored in Forrester’s Customer Experience Index, 2010;

113 large North American brands scored in Forrester’s Customer Experience Index, 2008; and112 large North American brands scored in Forrester’s Customer Experience Index, 2007

(percentages may not total 100 because of rounding)

Source: North American Technographics® Customer Experience Online Survey, Q3 2007, Q4 2008, Q4 2009, Q4 2010, Q4 2011, Q4 2012, Q4 2013 (US)

CXi score distribution

Very poor Poor OK Good Excellent(0 to 54) (55 to 64) (65 to 74) (75 to 84) (85+)

1%

10%

42%37%

11%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%




Figure 4 Range Of Company CXi Results Within 14 Industries


Base: US online consumers who have interacted with brands in these industries

Source: North American Technographics® Customer Experience Online Survey, Q4 2013 (US)

Average industry score

Hotels

Parcel shipping/delivery providers

Consumer electronics manufacturers

Banks

Insurance providers

Investment �rms

Airlines

Credit card providers

Wireless service providers

Rental cars

TV service providers

Internet service providers

Health insurance providers

80

80

79

75

74

73

73

72

71

69

65

64

64

Retailers 83

Very poor Poor OK Good Excellent

40 50 60 70 80 90 100

= Industry average = Individual company score




Figure 5 Brands With Large Changes In CXi Score Between 2013 And 2014




Very poor Poor OK ChangeGood Excellent

40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan 75

Charter Communications (ISP) 66

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois 74

Fifth Third 70

HSBC 69

Charter Communications (TV) 61

Capital One 360 (formerly ING Direct) 77

Cablevision/Interactive Optimum (iO) 68

Delta Air Lines 79

US Airways 71

United Airlines 67

AT&T U-Verse (TV) 69

Citibank (bank) 74

Comcast (ISP) 61

Dish Network/EchoStar 74

Macy’s 87

Verizon (DSL) 70

Kaiser 76

United Healthcare 67

22

21

20

17

16

16

15

14

13

13

13

12

12

12

11

11

11

10

10

Brands with CXi increases of 10 or more points

T-Mobile 70

15

= 2014 CXi score= 2013 CXi score




Figure 5 Brands With Large Changes In CXi Score Between 2013 And 2014 (Cont.)

In Contrast, There was Little Change among Industry Leaders

Despite their very substantial gains, our most-improved laggards did not displace the top-rated brands from last year. In general, the 2013 leaders retained their positions at the tops of their respective industries, holding on with either flat year-over-year scores or modest improvements.

■ Most industry leaders fended off challengers. There was little change among the top-rated companies in each industry (see Figure 6). For example, Southwest Airlines once again came in as the top airline, even though its score remained flat in an industry that had several large gainers. Courtyard by Marriott once again took the top spot among hotels, gaining two points in the process. USAA remained tops among banks (up one point), credit card providers (up five points), and insurance providers (up four points). Kaiser Permanente returned as the top health insurance provider, racking up a 10-point increase to stay ahead of the other health plans that stepped up their CX game.

■ A few new leaders did manage to emerge. Amazon.com debuted as a consumer electronics manufacturer (for the Kindle) in this year’s CXi with a score of 91, making it both the top brand in that industry and the top brand across all industries in our study. America Online — which didn’t appear in last year’s study either — came in tops among Internet service providers (ISPs) with a score of 79, edging out last year’s leader Verizon FiOS. Other new industry leaders included Ameriprise Financial (investment firms) and Old Navy (retailers).




Very poor Poor OK ChangeGood Excellent

40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts 68

BB&T 61

Century Link 49

Marshall’s 78

Hertz 66

-12

-11

-11

-11

-10

Brands with CXi decreases of 10 or more points





Figure 6 Forrester’s 2014 Customer Experience Index Rankings By Industry



Source: North American Technographics® Customer Experience Online Survey, Q4 2013 (US)Note: The underlying data behind each score and the data about the respondent population are availableto Forrester Technographics subscribers.


40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2014 Customer Experience Index scores — airlines

Southwest Airlines 81

Delta Air Lines 79

JetBlue Airways 77

Alaska Airlines 74

US Airways 71

American Airlines 71

United Airlines 67


= Same 2013 and 2014 CXi score




Figure 6 Forrester’s 2014 Customer Experience Index Rankings By Industry (Cont.)





40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2014 Customer Experience Index scores — banks

USAA 86

Other credit union 85

Other regional or community/local bank 82

Navy Federal Credit Union 82

Ally Bank 78

TD Bank 78

Capital One 360 (formerly ING Direct) 77

SunTrust Bank 76

Chase 74

PNC 74

Citibank 74

US Bank 72

Wells Fargo 71

Regions Bank 71

Fifth Third 70

HSBC 69

Bank of America 66

BB&T 61









40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2014 Customer Experience Index scores — consumerelectronics manufacturers

Sony 83

Microsoft(e.g., Xbox, Kinect, Windows Phone) 82

Samsung 82

HP 81

Apple 81

Nintendo (Wii, DS) 80

Panasonic 78

Vizio 78

LG 78

Dell 76

HTC 75

Toshiba 75

Gateway 73

Acer 72

BlackBerry 71

Motorola 69

Amazon (Kindle) 91










40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2014 Customer Experience Index scores — credit card providers

USAA 87

American Express 79

Barclaycard 78

Discover 76

Citi (e.g., Citibank) 75

Chase 73

PNC 71

Bank of America 68

Capital One 68

Wells Fargo 68

US Bank 64

GE Capital Retail Bank 63










40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2014 Customer Experience Index scores — health insurance providers

Kaiser 76

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan 75

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois 74

United Healthcare 67

Humana 67

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas 62Other Blue Cross Blue Shield

(not Anthem, CareFirst, Empire,Illinois, Michigan, or Texas)

62

Aetna 60

Cigna 59

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield 58

Medicaid 57










40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2014 Customer Experience Index scores — hotels

Courtyard by Marriott 90

Marriott Hotels & Resorts 87

Hilton Hotels 84

Hyatt Hotels & Resorts 83

Hampton Inn/Suites 82

La Quinta Inn & Suites 82

Holiday Inn Express 81

Embassy Suites 79

Best Western 79

Holiday Inn 78

Hilton Garden Inns 77

Comfort Inn 74

Days Inn 74

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts 68










40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2014 Customer Experience Index scores — insurance providers

USAA 87

State Farm 78

Geico 76

AAA 75

Nationwide 75

Liberty Mutual 74

Other independent insurance agent 73

New York Life 72

American Family 72

Allstate 72

Progressive 71

MetLife 70

The Hartford 67

Farmers Insurance 67

Travelers 62











40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2014 Customer Experience Index scores — Internet service providers

AOL (America Online) 79

Verizon FiOS 76

Cox Communications 73

Verizon (DSL) 70

Bright House Networks 67

Charter 66

AT&T U-Verse 66

Cablevision 66

Comcast 61

Time Warner Cable 60

Century Link 49










40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2014 Customer Experience Index scores — investment firms

Ameriprise Financial 84

Edward Jones 83

TD Ameritrade 80

Fidelity Investments 79

Vanguard 79

Charles Schwab 78

Other full-service brokerage(includes dedicated advisor) 73

Merrill Lynch 72

Morgan StanleyWealth Management 71

E-Trade 68

Other credit union 68

Wells Fargo Advisors 66











40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2014 Customer Experience Index scores — package delivery services

UPS 82

FedEx (Federal Express) 79

United States Postal Service(does not include mailing letters) 77










40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2014 Customer Experience Index scores — rental car providers

National Car Rental 74

Dollar Rental Car 71

Budget Rent A Car 71

Avis Rent A Car 71

Enterprise Rent-A-Car 71

Hertz 66

Alamo Rent A Car 65







Base: US online consumers who have interacted with brands in these industriesSource: North American Technographics® Customer Experience Online Survey, Q4 2013 (US)Note: The underlying data behind each score and the data about the respondent population are availableto Forrester Technographics subscribers.

2014 Customer Experience Index scores — retailers


40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Old Navy 90

Kohl’s 89

Amazon 88

Costco 87

Macy’s 87

JCPenney 86

Sam’s Club 86

Target 86

TJ Maxx 86

Lowe’s 85

CVS 85

Home Depot 85

Walgreens 84

BJ’s Wholesale Club 82

Barnes & Noble 82

Rite Aid 82

eBay 81

Of�ce Depot 80

Toys R Us 79

Best Buy 79

Wal-Mart 79

Marshall’s 78

Staples 77

Of�ceMax 77

Kmart 77

Sears 75

RadioShack 65

= 2014 CXi score= 2013 CXi score= Same 2013 and 2014 CXi score







40 50 60 70 80 90 100



2014 Customer Experience Index scores — TV service providers

Dish Network/EchoStar 74

Verizon FiOS 71

DirecTV 69

AT&T U-Verse 69

Bright House Networks 69

Cablevision/Interactive Optimum (iO) 68

Cox Communications 67

Other cable TV provider 63

Charter Communications 61

Comcast 59

Time Warner Cable 56









40 50 60 70 80 90 100



2014 Customer Experience Index scores — wireless service providers

Verizon Wireless 74

Boost Mobile 74

AT&T Wireless 72

TracFone 72

T-Mobile 70

Cricket (Leap Wireless) 70

Straight Talk 69

MetroPCS 68

Sprint 66

Virgin Mobile 62






CUsTOMeR eXpeRIenCe DIsCIpLIne DRIves ResULTs

What’s behind the bump in customer experience quality scores this year? Although several macro factors probably contributed to the overall rise, they can’t explain most of the increases.5 Furthermore, we know that deliberate efforts to repair broken experiences helped drive scores up for several brands.

■ Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan refocused its employees and co-created with members. In 2011, the health insurer established a dedicated CX team. The team launched a program called “E4” to educate, equip, and empower employees with the tools and information they need to deliver great member experiences. As part of E4, the firm captured members’ wants, needs, and emotions in three personas and then brought those personas to life for employees through an interactive persona room.6 The CX team also introduced BCBSM to the power of co-creation. Instead of redesigning its explanation of benefits (EOB) in a vacuum, the firm asked health plan members what their ideal EOB would look like. In a 2-hour workshop, customers cut up and then reassembled sections of content from several different EOB formats, showing the insurer exactly what information they wanted to see and the order in which they wanted to see it.7

■ Charter Communications reduced customer frustration and enhanced its services. Charter Communications is the fourth largest cable company in the US. Since 2012, the firm’s senior vice president of customer experience and his team have worked to systematically find and fix sources of customer frustration. As a result, executives report a 15% decrease in the number of times a Charter Communications tech had to go to a customer’s house to fix a problem.8 A series of service enhancements also helped bolster Charter’s scores: Major network upgrades now deliver higher Internet speeds and a more competitive TV offering. The average number of high-definition (HD) channels its TV subscribers receive went up by 25% since the end of 2011, doubling the HD lineup in a few markets last year.9 And with a new iPad app, Charter subscribers can finally do what other firms’ customers have been able to do for a while — access programming via mobile devices.

■ T-Mobile served unmet customer needs with differentiated offerings. T-Mobile leapt out of last place in the wireless industry in 2014 with a 15-point increase in its score. A series of headline-making changes to its pricing and packaging policies fueled this jump. For example, in mid-July 2013, the firm broke with industry norms by decoupling device and service costs, allowing customers to upgrade their phones as often as twice a year. And in early October 2013, the carrier announced that it would no longer charge international roaming rates in more than 100 countries, which is a move that it features in its latest advertising campaign.

■ Delta Air Lines added enjoyment to flights and ease in dealing with cancellations. Recent upgrades to its experience fueled Delta Air Lines’ 13-point CXi improvement.10 For example, on its coast-to-coast US flights, Delta Air Lines added creature comforts like Starbucks coffee, a wider selection of buy-on-board food options, and enhanced in-flight entertainment. Buying in-flight service offerings got easier too: New handheld devices let flight attendants email receipts




to customers for onboard purchases and take payment for seat upgrades if travelers want to snag extra legroom after boarding. What’s more, Delta Air Lines’ impressive new mobile app — which proactively delivers flight cancellation notices to customers along with the ability to rebook the next available flight in just a few taps — also seems to have helped. Travelers with a smartphone gave Delta Air Lines higher marks for ease of doing business than those who don’t use a smartphone did.11

r e c o m m e n d at i o n s

wanT HIgHeR sCORes FOR yOUR FIRM? MOve Up THe paTH TO CX MaTURITy

The only way to get — and keep — high marks from customers is to treat customer experience as a business discipline. As more companies build their CX capabilities, customer experience professionals in all firms need to help their organizations compete effectively in this arena. Here’s what we recommend:

1. If your firm is new to CX, implement a repair process. In the first phase of customer experience maturity, firms use a classic closed-loop process to listen to customer feedback, identify and prioritize customer pain points, and coordinate projects to fix what’s broken. CX professionals need to jump-start this process if it doesn’t exist today. Some might only have to shift the focus of existing market research to CX issues. Others may need to start their firm’s first customer listening program, combining traditional data insights with tools like customer journey maps and customer experience ecosystem maps to help diagnose the root causes of customer frustration.12 Firms without data can jump-start their repair process using this CXi benchmark. Determine your biggest issue — unmet customer needs, ease of doing business, or enjoyability — and start there.13

2. If your company’s stuck in the repair phase, shift your focus to problem prevention. The repair phase helps people understand how CX problems happen. More often than not it’s because employees and partner don’t realize the impact that their actions or decisions have on customers (especially when combined with the actions and decisions everyone else is making).14 Capitalize on this “aha” moment to add “impact to customer experience” as a criterion in key business processes. This simple change forces organizations to stop and think about the effect they’ll have on customers before moving forward with a new project or moving on to the next stage of an existing one. If people resist the idea, use data from the repair phase to remind them just what happens when you don’t think about CX upfront and how much pain they can save customers by creating a healthy customer experience ecosystem.

3. If your firm already has a disciplined approach to CX, pick up the pace. As we saw this year, many laggards are getting better at the basics, pushing the competitive bar higher and closing in on current leaders. CX professionals at today’s leading firms must arm employees with sophisticated CX tools like observational studies, experience co-creation,




detailed driver analysis, and predictive behavioral models. Observational studies help employees detect changing customer needs before anyone else does and sometimes allow employees to completely reframe these needs to address a problem that no one else has solved. Co-creation brings the creative power of the entire CX ecosystem to bear on the design process, creating experiences that are better than those that one group alone designed. And using driver analyses and predictive models, leaders can choose the best of the best ideas to maximize the organization’s long-term success.15

sUppLeMenTaL MaTeRIaL

Methodology

Forrester conducted the North American Technographics® Customer Experience Online Survey, Q4 2013, fielded in October 2013 of 7,538 US individuals ages 18 to 88. For results based on a randomly chosen sample of this size (N = 7,538), there is 95% confidence that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 1.13% of what they would be if the entire population of US online individuals ages 18 and older had been surveyed. Forrester weighted the data by age, gender, income, broadband adoption, and region to demographically represent the adult US online population. The survey sample size, when weighted, was 7,522. (Note: Weighted sample sizes can be different from the actual number of respondents to account for individuals generally underrepresented in online panels.) Please note that this was an online survey. Respondents who participate in online surveys have in general more experience with the Internet and feel more comfortable transacting online.

To help brands get a sense of which customers participated in the CXi and which factors might have affected their scores, we include a variety of different questions in the survey in addition to the three primary questions described above. The full survey instrument is available to clients who subscribe to Forrester Consumer Technographics, but here’s a sampling of what’s available.

■ Standard demographic questions. Assuming that we have an adequate sample size, the survey allows us to cut the data by criteria like respondents’ age, gender, income, state of residence, and marital status.

■ Forrester’s Consumer Technographics segmentation questions. Because this survey is part of Forrester’s Consumer Technographics product, we include questions about how often respondents go online, where, what kind of online access they use, and their attitudes toward technology along a variety of dimensions.

■ Industry-specific variables. In 2012, we added several questions that allow us to cut the data by variables of interest to brands in the travel, healthcare, financial services, and telecom industries. Those include identifying business versus leisure travelers, respondents’ level of investible assets, those who have health insurance through an employer versus those who buy it directly, those




with chronic health conditions, those who buy telecom services in a bundle from one supplier, and those who have a local property and casualty insurance agent versus those who buy directly from the insurer. Those questions are once again available for use as segmentation criteria for the 2014 data.

For Technographics Clients: How To get More Technographics Data Insights

You can find more information about the data on the survey page online. From this page, you will be able to download the survey instrument.

For data subscribers, please contact your data engagement director or manager with any questions regarding the use of Forrester’s North American Technographics Customer Experience Online Survey, Q4 2013, or custom data analyses. If you do not have a direct point of contact, please pose all inquiries to the Technographics Team, who can be reached at [email protected].

For non-data subscribers, please contact the Technographics Business Development Team with any questions regarding the use of this data or custom data projects at [email protected].

enDnOTes1 Customer experience professionals must clearly articulate the business benefits of improving customer

experience. Years of Forrester data confirm the strong relationship between the quality of a firm’s customer experience (as measured by Forrester’s CXi) and loyalty measures like willingness to consider the company for another purchase, likelihood to switch business, and likelihood to recommend. We used that data to build simple models that show how changes in loyalty associated with higher CXi scores can affect a company’s yearly revenue. See the March 26, 2012, “The Business Impact Of Customer Experience, 2012” report.

2 For a detailed description of the methodology behind Forrester’s CXi, see the January 4, 2013, “Executive Q&A: Forrester’s Customer Experience Index” report.

3 While there appears to be a gap between 2008 and 2010 CXi data, this was simply a change in the report’s naming convention and publication date. The 2008 CXi was published in December 2008 using data gathered earlier that quarter. The following year’s index used data collected at the same time of year — Q4 2009 — but was called the “Customer Experience Index, 2010,” because it was published in January 2010. There has been no gap in the index since its inception in 2007.

4 To calculate the average for an industry, we use all responses for any company in that industry even if the specific company did not receive enough responses to be included on its own. For example, if only 50 respondents rated Acme Bank, it would not be listed in the CXi as an individual company, but those 50 responses would be included in the average for the banking industry.







5 Among the macro factors we considered: the economy and the weather. In the year between our 2013 and 2014 studies, the S&P 500 rose 22%. And in the quarter in which we fielded our 2014 CXi survey, the US economy grew at its fastest rate in two years. Source: Annie Lowrey, “Revision Shows U.S. Growing at Fastest Rate Since 2011,” The New York Times, December 20, 2013 (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/business/economy/third-quarter-us-growth-at-4-1-rate-in-new-estimate.html).

According to the University of Michigan, consumers also felt better about their personal financial situations. The 2014 Atlantic hurricane season was also the least active since 1982. Fewer hurricanes mean fewer problems in several of our most improved industries, including airlines, insurance providers, ISPs, and TV service providers. Source: Surveys of Consumers, University of Michigan (http://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/get-chart.php?y=2013&m=5&n=6r&f=pdf&k=7d2e1d8fe5ca7fd42685441b8a764c27); Jeff Kagan,

“Why Cablevision Is Tweaking Its Own Nose,” E-Commerce Times, September 13, 2012 (http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/76145.html).

6 In June 2013, Forrester recognized the success of the BCBSM persona room with a Forrester Outside In Award in the customer understanding category. Source: Adele Sage, “Announcing Forrester’s 2013 Outside In Award Winners,” Forrester Blogs, June 25, 2013 (http://blogs.forrester.com/adele_sage/13-06-25-announcing_forresters_2013_outside_in_award_winners).

7 An EOB is a printed statement that’s mailed to health plan members after a claim has been processed, explaining any payments made on their behalf.

8 Source: Morgan Stanley Technology Media & Telecoms Conference (http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=112298&p=irol-EventDetails&EventId=5052599).

9 Source: “Third Quarter 2013 Results,” Charter Communications, November 5, 2013 (http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MjA5NDYyfENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&t=1); “Charter Completes All-Digital Network Upgrade in North Texas,” Charter Communications press release, June 18, 2013 (http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=112298&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1830791&highlight=).

10 It’s likely that Delta Air Lines’ score was also bolstered by its on-time performance in 2013. From January 2013 to September 2013, it had the highest on-time percentage of any major US carrier (90.3%) and the lowest rate of canceled flights in that same group (0.1%). Source: US Department of Transportation (http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/press_releases/dot095_13).

11 The emergence of powerful mobile devices, connected sensors, and open application programming interfaces (APIs) makes it possible to deliver a new type of customer experience known as proactive experiences. These experiences change the way customers relate to and engage with services by closing the gap between problem and solution, integrating siloed information and services, and personalizing experiences based on context. In this report, we examine how proactive experiences are raising customer expectations and present specific ways that companies can get started on the path to delivering proactive experiences today. See the November 20, 2013, “Anticipate Your Customer’s Next Move With Proactive Experiences” report.






12 Journey maps help organizations analyze specific interactions and identify opportunities for improvements. If that’s all maps are used for, they will deliver value to the organizations that use them. However, some organizations go beyond tactical uses of journey maps and turn to them as foundational tools for driving a customer-centric culture. See the July 27, 2012, “How To Get Value From Customer Journey Maps” report.

13 Detailed scores for each of the three CXi components are available to Forrester Consumer Technographics subscribers. For more information, email [email protected].

14 Forrester calls the complex set of interdependencies between customers, employees, and partners that shape customer experience a company’s customer experience ecosystem. See the February 28, 2013, “The Customer Experience Ecosystem” report.

15 Driver analyses are custom studies designed to explore which touchpoints or factors like clear language, convenience, or efficiency contribute most to a customer’s perception of the three CXi criteria for a particular brand. For more information on conducting a CXi-based driver analysis, please contact your Forrester account manager.




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