Highlights From The Global State of Customer Experience 2019 Report

The 2019 Global State of Customer Experience report by the CX Network has been published. This year’s edition saw over 220 responses from CX practitioners in various functions across major industries all over the world. The participants share their insights into the trends, challenges & investment priorities that are shaping customer experience in 2019.

Global State of Customer Experience 2019 Report Respondents
Images: Global State of Customer Experience 2019 Report

This article shares 3 key highlights from the report to help you stay up to date with the latest happenings in the CX community, this way you can easily benchmark the progress of your organization against that of peers and competitors, and prioritize your plans accordingly for the next 12 months. 

#1. 2019 Customer Experience Industry Trends

When respondents were asked for the biggest trends impacting the CX industry, the top three trends remained almost unchanged compared to last year, except that Digital customer experience dropped to second place, replaced by Data and Analytics in 2019.

Top Trends Global State of Customer Experience Report
Top Trends For 2019

Emotional engagement also took a huge leap holding the number 3 spot for CX solution providers in 2019. AI and chatbots are still a top trend for both Solution providers and industry commenters.

#2. Industry Challenges

Building a customer first culture remains a major challenge across board, especially for CX practitioners and solution providers.

Top Challenges
Top Challenges 2019

Industry commenters fingered Siloed customer data the major challenge, followed by building a customer first culture. This is quite interesting considering siloed customer data is a new entry in the report.

#3. Investment Priorities

In 2019, Customer journey mapping made a comeback as a top investment priority for CX Practitioners, despite being knocked off the top position and dropping down five places in 2018.

Investment priorities
Investment Priorities For 2019

Surprisingly, it didn’t feature among the top 3 investment priorities for industry analysts and solution providers. Digital customer experience is the top investment priority across board in 2019, taking the top spot from Data & analytics. 

See also  Personalization Is an Important Aspect of Online Customer Experience

It is also worth mentioning that the most popular budget size for CX initiatives in 2019 is between $0 – $50,000, very similar to that of 2018. 


As a Customer experience professional, it is important to stay up to date with the latest industry trends and technology. This enables you to benchmark your efforts against that of global peers and competitors and empowers you to make the necessary changes quickly.

The Global State of Customer Experience report contains insightful information and actionable data that helps you achieve this.
Download the full report here.

Kelechi Okeke