Forrester Research has just published "Obstacles to Customer Experience Success, 2008," which distills the results of a survey of 287 customer experience decision-makers. The overwhelming majority — 91 percent — said that customer experience will be very important or critical in 2008.
That represents a big jump from 2007, when a similar survey was commissioned. At that time, 38 percent of respondents said customer experience was critical; this year, that number rose to 64 percent.
Other significant findings in the report:
- Roughly half of those surveyed said their company has a senior executive in charge of customer experience initiatives, up from 27 percent the year before.
- Few companies have a cohesive set of data upon which to act — fewer than half say they possess a single set of customer feedback data to use across the enterprise.
- Companies are coming around to understanding the importance of a customer experience strategy. Roughly half of the firms surveyed said that the lack of a strategy was their biggest roadblock; that's down from 75 percent the previous year.
