The CX Cast

Brands want customer feedback, and Forrester research shows that customers are willing to give it—when asked properly. But too often, brands will send out a never-ending stream of ill-timed, poorly designed surveys that even the most helpful customer declines to answer. Forrester VP, Principal Analyst Maxie Schmidt joins the podcast to argue the case for treating feedback as a customer touchpoint. Featuring: Maxie Schmidt, VP, Principal Analyst Show Notes: Brands want customer feedback, and Forrester research shows that customers are willing to give it—when asked properly. But too often, brands will send out a never-ending stream of ill-timed, poorly designed surveys that even the most helpful customer declines to answer. Forrester VP, Principal Analyst Maxie Schmidt joins the podcast to argue the case for treating feedback as a customer touchpoint. We discuss: What types of questions should brands ask customers--and which should they avoid? How do surveys reflect the relationship that brands want with their customers? What do customers want out of surveys? How can brands design better surveys? Additional Resources Why And How To Pretest Surveys With Customers Companies have our data. Why do they keep asking if we like them?

Forrester's CX Index measures customers' perceptions of how well companies deliver customer experiences to ultimately build or sustain loyalty. It assesses CX quality based on ease, effectiveness and emotion. VP, Research Director Oliwia Berdak and Researcher Jana Gül share their analysis of 2024 CX Index performance in Europe, diving into insights that explain the scores specific to banking within and across several countries.

Personas are a foundational, seemingly simple tool—yet they’re deceptively challenging. That’s the premise of the latest research by Audrey Chee-Read and Gina Bhawalkar, which includes best practice reports and persona builder tools. They offer examples of effective and ineffective personas to increase the ROI of your efforts.

Angelina, a co-host specializing in customer-focused organizational culture change, shares her insights on fostering a customer-centric environment. She emphasizes the importance of aligning customer-facing roles with back-office operations for seamless experiences. The discussion covers 'culture energy' and how authentic leadership can enhance employee motivation and trust. Angelina also outlines strategies for instilling accountability and transparency within organizations, citing real-world examples, including a machinery company and a Canadian government agency.

Forrester's annual Budget Planning Guide for Customer Experience offers data-driven guidance on where to increase, decrease, or experiment with your budget for 2025. Co-authors Principal Analyst Riccardo Pasto and VP, Executive Partner Katy Cobian explain the research process for creating the recommendations and how CX pros should use the budget planning guide.

CX Day is an annual event for a lot of organizations, usually occurring the first week of October. Successful CX Days require planning to ensure momentum is built before the event and excitement for CX is sustained after the event. With a great theme and employee-focused planning, you can use CX Day as a moment to educate and celebrate employees, and drive a customer-focused culture. Featuring: Martin Gill, VP, Research Director Angelina Gennis, Senior Analyst Show Notes: CX Day is an annual event for a lot of organizations, usually occurring the first week of October. Successful CX Days require planning to ensure momentum is built before the event and excitement for CX is sustained after the event. With a great theme and employee-focused planning, you can use CX Day as a moment to educate and celebrate employees, and drive a customer-focused culture. This week, Angelina and Martin answer:  What is CX Day? Why do CX teams organize it?  What sorts of activities happen on CX Day? How do you drive engagement?  What are the success indicators of the event?  Where should you start if you're planning your first CX day?  Where can you find inspiration?

How can CX leaders apply generative AI to creating customer experiences or transforming their work? Listen to learn how CX leaders can run genAI hackathons to help Forrester teams and clients experiment with genAI tools in a safe, fun, and engaging environment.

Maxie Schmidt is a Forrester VP and Principal Analyst known for her expertise in customer experience measurement. She discusses the latest survey findings on voice-of-customer practices, revealing optimism in CX maturity for 2024 despite existing challenges. Maxie highlights the critical gaps in current measurement practices, advocating for real-time data over traditional methods. She emphasizes the necessity of embedding metrics into business strategies and the importance of linking data to specific business outcomes to drive strategic influence.

Culture work underpins every successful customer experience (CX) transformation. Martin and Angelina discuss Forrester’s collection of case studies that capture diverse efforts to build a customer-focused culture change to ultimately improve the customer experience.

Mental models operate throughout your organization. They determine what we believe will occur and create expectations, predictions, and decisions — for customers, executives, and employees. VP and Principal Analyst Joana de Quintanilha explains harnessing mental models and applies it to CX pros’ biggest business challenges.