Customer Experience Primer for 2025
29 January 2025 - ID G00822386 - 11 min read
By: Leah Leachman
Initiatives:Customer Experience
Customer experience strengthens marketing influence and drives
growth. This initiative helps CMOs understand the needs and
expectations of prioritized target audiences and enhance
customer-centric culture to increase customer satisfaction,
retention and loyalty.
Scope
Gartner’s customer experience (CX) research portfolio helps clients generate revenue by
driving customer experiences that support organizational customer growth, loyalty and
retention goals.
Topics in this initiative include:
■
Customer Experience Strategy: Develop a CX strategy to define, measure, implement
and prioritize customer-centric efforts to align customer and commercial objectives.
■
Customer Understanding: Capture and use vital customer insight and data from
customer research and VoC programs to build a holistic understanding of customer
needs that enhances marketing’s CX strategy and initiatives.
■
Experience Design and Delivery: Develop, evolve and employ CX assets, tools and
strategies to strengthen the execution of marketing efforts and initiatives.
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Analysis
Figure 1: Customer Experience Overview
Most CEOs and CFOs expect that growth should come from better customer experiences,
yet CMOs overindex their marketing channel budgets on acquisition (almost 79%) rather
than loyalty and advocacy (20.6%). 1,2 This strategy isn’t working. The 2024 Gartner
Channel and Campaign Management Survey found that the majority of CMOs (87%)
faced campaign performance issues in the last 12 months. 3 And customers aren’t
impressed either — over half of U.S. consumers do not believe that brands understand
their needs and preferences. 4
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In order for brands to compete on customer experience, marketing needs a new approach
to growth. The best growth signals come from organizations’ own customers, yet
marketing leaders are failing to listen to those signals.This critical capability represents a
major “say-do” gap for organizations. Of the over 700 organizations completing Gartner’s
Marketing Score for Customer Experience, the biggest difference between an
organization’s maturity and the importance of that activity exists in three areas: 5
■
How organizations capture, use and communicate voice of the customer (VoC)
insights
■
The way that organizations measure and analyze performance with customers
■
The ability to prioritize investments to develop a strong CX strategy
CMOs should see these three areas as opportunities — a clear path for steering their brand
toward commercial and customer success. In fact, CMOs from companies that exceed
profitability goals invest more in customer loyalty and advocacy than those from
companies that do not meet these goals. 2 This initiative includes the resources to help
organizations achieve their objectives now and in the future.
Topics
CMOs must exploit the drivers that improve customer retention and lifetime value by
solving problems that increase dissatisfaction and attrition. Sound plans rely on an
outside-in view of customer objectives and expectations, informed by multiple research
methods that create insight into customers’ criteria for success. These insights shape
tools such as personas and journey maps that enable customer-centric decisions and
well-orchestrated experiences. But, more broadly, they help CMOs build CX execution plans
that justify investment, drive cross-functional collaboration and support the integration
among brand, CX and organizational culture.
Our research in this area addresses the following topics:
Customer Experience Strategy
Successful CX strategies clearly define how delivering against customer needs will
support and accelerate commercial objectives. Mapping the ideal customer journey and
translating that into action that supports the execution of a consistent customer
experience. The successful execution of a CX strategy cannot be the responsibility of a
single department. It requires active participation from cross-functional leadership toward
a long-term goal of continuously improving CX.
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Questions Your Peers Are Asking
■
How do we build an effective CX strategy that will generate stakeholder support,
drive brand preference and improve customer loyalty and retention?
■
How do we identify the customer groups/audiences that we should target and with
channels and technology?
■
What are the steps that we need to take to launch or mature our CX program at my
organization?
■
How do we measure the value of CX initiatives to the business?
■
What type of selection criteria should our organization use to prioritize CX projects or
initiatives?
Recommended Content
Some recommended content may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.
■
Drive Growth by Aligning Brand, Customer Experience and User Experience
■
The 2-Prong Strategy of Strategic and Tactical Customer Experience Success
■
How to Measure Customer Experiences That Drive Growth and Loyalty
■
Case Study: Using Customer Data Analytics to Prove the Business Value of CX and
Drive Action
■
5 Action Items for CMOs to Lead Organizations From Product to Customer Centricity
Planned Research
■
How to effectively connect CX with business outcomes
■
How to prioritize CX initiatives for business value
■
How to build and communicate CX metrics across different roles
■
How to empower customer-centric decisions
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Customer Understanding
Understanding customers’ current and shifting needs requires a commitment to ongoing
listening and research that balances what customers say with how they behave. However,
effective customer listening is as much about how an organization uses, analyzes and
disseminates insight as it is about what the organization listens to and how it listens.
Without a strategy to collect, analyze and share those insights to drive action, an
organization will struggle to deliver consistent and compelling experiences to customers
and provide value to internal stakeholders.
Questions Your Peers Are Asking
■
What are the most valuable VoC and customer research use cases for marketing
efforts?
■
How can we get deeper insights and make better decisions from our VoC data?
■
What types of metrics should we use to measure customer perception, loyalty and
satisfaction?
■
What type of resources and skills do we need to understand shifting customer needs
and behaviors?
■
How do we improve customer experience survey response rates and insight value of
survey results?
Recommended Content
Some recommended content may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.
■
Create CX Performance Standards for Marketing Success
■
How to Communicate Voice of the Customer (VoC) Insights That Drive Action
■
How to Boost Voice-of-the-Customer Survey Response Rates
■
How to Operationalize Your Voice-of-the-Customer Program
■
Improve Customer Understanding by Democratizing VoC Data Access
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Planned Research
■
Ways to use positive VoC feedback to direct your CX strategy
■
Strategies for progressing your VoC maturity
■
Approaches for measuring customer perception and loyalty
Experience Design and Delivery
Delivering experiences that build customer loyalty and advocacy requires CX tools that
illuminate how and where an organization’s brand can deliver value to its customers
throughout their end-to-end journeys. The development and adoption of customer
personas and journeys promote empathy for customers and instill a customer-centric
design methodology. These key tools also improve alignment on how an organization
should prioritize efforts to enhance CX that results in benefits to both the customer and
the company.
Questions Your Peers Are Asking
■
How do we get started with persona development and/or customer journey
mapping?
■
How do we operationalize or act on insights gleaned from personas and customer
journeys?
■
How do we use customer journeys to improve cross-functional collaboration and
prioritize CX projects or initiatives?
■
How do we implement a best-in-class loyalty program?
■
What are innovative approaches to offering loyalty program benefits?
Recommended Content
Some recommended content may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.
■
How to Make Your Customer Experience Personas Actionable Using Data-Driven
Insights
■
Use Gartner’s Buy/Own/Advocate Framework to Map Customer Journeys and Deliver
Better Customer Experiences
■
Reduce Churn Along the Customer Journey
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■
3 Steps to Increase Your Loyalty Program ROI
■
Use a Customer-First, Channel-Second Strategy to Drive Loyalty
Planned Research
■
How to effectively leverage Gartner’s Buy/Own/Advocate journey framework in
marketing
■
How to achieve full-funnel marketing growth through postpurchase experiences
■
How to tailor loyalty efforts to Gen Z
■
How to use gamification to level up loyalty programs
Suggested First Steps
■
Customer Experience Maturity Model for Chief Marketing Officers
■
Marketing Score for Customer Experience
■
Key Insights From Gartner’s Customer Experience Maturity Diagnostic
■
The Foundational Capabilities That Create Customer Experience Success
■
Ask 11 Questions to Measure an Organization’s Customer Centricity
■
Building an Effective Customer Experience Governance Framework
Essential Reading
■
Quick Answer: Use Segments and Personas Together to Understand and Target Most
Valued Customers
■
Quick Answer: How Do I Create Personas That Drive Better Marketing and CX
Results?
■
Quick Answer: Why Benchmarking Your CX Scores Against Competitors Can
Undermine CX Success
■
Quick Answer: Improve Survey Response Rate by Showing How Feedback Is Used
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Tools and Toolkits
■
Ignition Guide to Building a Cross-Functional CX Steering Committee
■
Ignition Guide to Building a Customer Journey Map
■
Ignition Guide to Planning and Conducting a Customer Journey Mapping Workshop
■
Ignition Guide to Creating a Successful Loyalty Program
■
Tool: Communicate Your CX Strategy Presentation Template
■
Tool: Align CX Priorities to Marketing Goals
■
Tool: A Playbook of Project Ideas to Improve Customer Experience
Evidence
1
2024 Gartner Senior Executive Views of CMO Leadership Survey. This survey was
conducted to explore how chief marketing officers are perceived by key C-suite leaders
(i.e., CEOs and CFOs), and what distinguishes effective CMOs under different behavioral
and company circumstances. The survey was administered online from August through
September 2024 and includes data from 125 senior executives in North America (n = 84)
and Europe (n = 41). Respondents were CEOs and CFOs at organizations with at least $50
million in annual revenue, with 36% coming from organizations with at least $1 billion in
annual revenue. Respondents came from a wide variety of industries, including
manufacturing and natural resources (n = 21); banking and financial services (n = 6); retail
(n = 8); healthcare (n = 23); consumer products (n = 17); pharmaceuticals, biotechnology
and life sciences (n = 6); insurance (n = 2); technology products (n = 14); travel and
hospitality (n = 8); IT and business services (n = 16); and media (n = 4). Disclaimer: The
results of this survey do not represent global findings or the market as a whole, but reflect
the sentiments of the respondents and companies surveyed.
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2
2024 Gartner CMO Spend Survey. This survey looked at top-line marketing budgets and
aimed to identify how evolving customer journeys, C-suite pressures and cost challenges
impact marketing’s spending priorities and channel effectiveness. The research was
conducted online from February through March 2024 among 395 respondents in North
America (n = 200) and Europe (n = 195). Respondents were required to be involved in
decisions pertaining to setting or influencing marketing strategy/planning and to aligning
marketing budget/resources, and/or they were required to lead cross-functional programs
and strategies with marketing. Seventy-four percent of the respondents came from
organizations with $1 billion or more in annual revenue. Respondents came from a variety
of industries: financial services (n = 46), insurance (n = 35), manufacturing (n = 48),
consumer products (n = 32), media (n = 35), retail (n = 38), healthcare (n = 47), pharma (n
= 37), IT and business services (n = 41), and travel and hospitality (n = 36). Disclaimer:
Results of this survey do not represent global findings or the market as a whole, but reflect
the sentiments of the respondents and companies surveyed.
3
Gartner Channel and Campaign Management Survey. This survey aimed to understand
how marketing organizations should organize internal resources to manage effective
campaigns, efficient channels and impactful content. It was conducted online from the
end of July through mid-September 2024. In total, 418 respondents were surveyed in their
native languages across North America (n = 194) and Europe (n = 224). Qualifying
organizations reported enterprisewide annual revenue for fiscal 2023 of at least $100
million, with 80% of the respondents coming from organizations with $1 billion or more in
annual revenue. The respondents came from a variety of industries: financial services (n =
67), insurance (n = 32), manufacturing (n = 43), consumer products (n = 38), retail (n =
40), travel and hospitality (n = 37), healthcare (n = 33), pharmaceuticals (n = 21), media (n
= 29), tech products (n = 40), and IT and business services (n = 38). All the respondents
were required to be senior decision makers in the marketing function, where they held
significant responsibilities in setting or influencing overall marketing strategy and
planning. They were also required to be involved in decisions pertaining to managing
multiple marketing campaigns and/or advertising channels, as well as creating, managing
and executing digital marketing strategy. Disclaimer: The results of this survey do not
represent global findings or the market as a whole, but reflect the sentiments of the
respondents and companies surveyed.
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4
2024 Gartner Consumer Values and Lifestyle Survey. The purpose of this survey was to
understand consumer lifestyles and motivations. The research was conducted online in
two parts, from 30 July to 28 August 2024 among 6,174 respondents in the U.S. (n =
4,146), Canada (n = 1,012) and the U.K. (n = 1,016). The first part of the survey included
screening, demographic, sentiment, values and lifestyle questions. The second part
included category-specific (for example, money and spending, retail, shopping,
sustainability, health, and beauty) questions. Respondents were required to be at least 15
years old. Quotas in the U.S. were set for geographic areas, age, gender, ethnicity and
employment status to approximate the U.S. population as a whole. Quotas in the U.K. and
Canada were set for geographic areas, age, gender and employment status to
approximate the U.K. and Canadian population as a whole.
5
The Gartner Customer Experience Score — also known as the Gartner CX Maturity
diagnostic — offers the best of Gartner expertise and peer-based research. Maturity is
measured on a scale ranging from 1 (low) to 5 (high). It measures how advanced an
organization’s development is in a functional activity relative to Gartner’s expert
assessment of practices associated with that activity. The maturity of an activity is
measured by several subactivities weighted 1 through 5, depending on how progressive
they are. Importance is measured on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high). Importance measures
how important each functional activity is to the overall effectiveness of the function in
meeting its business objectives. 765 organizations completed the Gartner CX Score
assessment online from September 2020 through June 2024.
Document Revision History
Customer Experience Primer for 2024 - 31 January 2024
Customer Experience Primer for 2023 - 2 February 2023
Customer Experience Primer for 2022 - 4 February 2022
Customer Experience Primer for 2021 - 1 February 2021
Customer Experience Primer for 2020 - 15 May 2020
Customer Experience Primer for 2020 - 21 February 2020
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Related Priorities
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Initiative Name
Description
Marketing
Data
and
Analytics
This initiative will guide you to develop
competencies that demonstrate marketing’s
value, optimize performance, deliver on
changing customer expectations and
enhance your strategic playbook.
Marketing
Organization
and
Talent
Marketing organization and talent includes
practices, structures and models to help you
map functional abilities to goals, improve
processes, and adjust your internal and
outsourced talent mix.
Customer
Acquisition
and
Growth
Gartner’s customer acquisition and growth
initiative helps clients understand the
strategies and tactics needed to engage
high-priority customers, convert demand into
sales and expand customer relationships.
Marketing
Operations
Gartner’s marketing operations initiative
helps clients understand how to establish
and optimize a marketing operations
function and concurrently build an impactive
pursuit of operational excellence.
Consumers
and
Culture
Understanding why consumers do what they
do — and the cultural and technological
factors that impact them — is missioncritical to effective marketing.
Marketing
Channels
and
Content
This initiative provides the strategic,
operational and benchmarking guidance you
need to plan, execute and optimize your
marketing efforts in an increasingly complex
landscape.
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Initiative Name
Description
Boost
Customer-Led
Growth
This initiative covers synchronization of
commercial functions to reach revenue and
retention goals using shared operational
processes and a programmatic approach to
customer experience and success.
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Related Priorities
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Page 1A of 5A
Initiative Name
Description
Marketing Data and Analytics
This initiative will guide you to develop competencies that
demonstrate marketing’s value, optimize performance, deliver on
changing customer expectations and enhance your strategic
playbook.
Marketing Organization and Talent
Marketing organization and talent includes practices, structures
and models to help you map functional abilities to goals, improve
processes, and adjust your internal and outsourced talent mix.
Customer Acquisition and Growth
Gartner’s customer acquisition and growth initiative helps clients
understand the strategies and tactics needed to engage highpriority customers, convert demand into sales and expand
customer relationships.
Marketing Operations
Gartner’s marketing operations initiative helps clients understand
how to establish and optimize a marketing operations function
and concurrently build an impactive pursuit of operational
excellence.
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Initiative Name
Description
Consumers and Culture
Understanding why consumers do what they do — and the
cultural and technological factors that impact them — is missioncritical to effective marketing.
Marketing Channels and Content
This initiative provides the strategic, operational and
benchmarking guidance you need to plan, execute and optimize
your marketing efforts in an increasingly complex landscape.
Boost Customer-Led Growth
This initiative covers synchronization of commercial functions to
reach revenue and retention goals using shared operational
processes and a programmatic approach to customer experience
and success.
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Initiative Name
Description
Marketing Data and Analytics
This initiative will guide you to develop competencies that demonstrate
marketing’s value, optimize performance, deliver on changing customer
expectations and enhance your strategic playbook.
Marketing Organization and Talent
Marketing organization and talent includes practices, structures and
models to help you map functional abilities to goals, improve processes,
and adjust your internal and outsourced talent mix.
Customer Acquisition and Growth
Gartner’s customer acquisition and growth initiative helps clients
understand the strategies and tactics needed to engage high-priority
customers, convert demand into sales and expand customer
relationships.
Marketing Operations
Gartner’s marketing operations initiative helps clients understand how to
establish and optimize a marketing operations function and concurrently
build an impactive pursuit of operational excellence.
Consumers and Culture
Understanding why consumers do what they do — and the cultural and
technological factors that impact them — is mission-critical to effective
marketing.
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Page 4A of 5A
Initiative Name
Description
Marketing Channels and Content
This initiative provides the strategic, operational and benchmarking
guidance you need to plan, execute and optimize your marketing efforts
in an increasingly complex landscape.
Boost Customer-Led Growth
This initiative covers synchronization of commercial functions to reach
revenue and retention goals using shared operational processes and a
programmatic approach to customer experience and success.
Gartner, Inc. | G00822386
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