Gartner Research

Gartner Survey Finds Importance of Customer Experience on the Rise — Marketing Is on the Hook

Published: 29 September 2014

Summary

Growing competition and consumer power have eroded traditional product-based advantages, forcing organizations to shift to a new battlefield: the customer experience. Marketing leaders are expected to create exceptional branded moments at every customer touchpoint.

Included in Full Research

  • Key Finding: Eighty-nine percent of companies surveyed plan to compete primarily on the basis of the customer experience by 2016
  • Key Finding: Fewer than half of companies surveyed rate their customer experience as exceptional today, but two-thirds expect it to be so in two years
  • Key Finding: Sixty-five percent of companies surveyed have the equivalent of a chief customer officer — they report equally to the CMO and CEO
  • Key Finding: Customer executives are expected to lead a closed-loop system of insight and action, where customer data drives multichannel customer experiences
  • Key Finding: Marketing controls the majority of the customer experience budget in more than half of the surveyed companies
  • Key Finding: Although people are rated the top priority for improving the customer experience, the top investments and growth are in technology
  • What to Do Next
  • Methodology

Analysts:

Jake Sorofman Laura McLellan

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