Forrester CX North America 2023: The Biggest Takeaways from the Customer Experience Conference

One thing is clear after Forrester CX North America this year: Brands remain obsessed with their customers, and customer experience (CX) leaders are now ready to do what it takes to delight them with personalization and build customer loyalty.

Forrester brought together over 1,000 leaders across customer experience and adjacent areas of business — including marketing, digital, and research — in Nashville for the conference. It was an opportunity to engage in conversations about the state of CX, exchange ideas for personalizing the customer journey, and explore where customer experience may be in the future.

From one-on-one discussions at our booth to marquee sessions with top brands, CX leaders at the conference were reminded why Medallia is the market-leading enterprise experience platform.

5 Biggest Takeaways from Forrester CX North America 2023

Forrester CX North America and the sessions hosted by Medallia offered insights all CX leaders need to know, so let’s recap what you may have missed.

Here are the biggest takeaways from Forrester CX North America 2023.

#1. With a culture of customer centricity, your brand creates more meaningful customer interactions

Interactions between your brand and its customers occur at all hours throughout the day, and every interaction needs to be treated with equal importance. It’s the approach taken by customer-centric brands with empathy as a core value.

As a result of cultivating a culture of customer centricity, brands create customer interactions that prove each customer is more than a dollar sign or ticket number. Customers hold these brands in high regard, and they return again and again for repeat purchases while also recommending products and services to their peers.

CVS Health joined Medallia at the conference for a session about customer centricity, where Srikant Narasimhan — Vice President, Head of Enterprise Customer Experience — guided attendees through empowering an organization to take this approach.

Customer-centric cultures lead to an understanding of customer expectations, personalization throughout the customer journey, empathetic communication, prompt problem-solving, and innovative solutions that drive the business forward and bolster customer satisfaction (CSAT).

#2. Immediate, contextual personalization wins customer loyalty

Customers know what they’re looking for, but does your brand also know? In discussing this topic with attendees, it was evident that CX leaders realize the key to winning customer loyalty is personalization.

Taking a one-size-fits-all approach to customer experience doesn’t work anymore — in fact, it never really did. Now, personalization that occurs in real time and with context attracts first-time buyers and turns these customers into brand ambassadors.

Personalization in CX makes customers feel valued by recognizing each individual’s unique preferences, needs, and expectations. It creates a sense of connection and trust, and the contextual side of personalization ensures a customer receives an experience relevant to them. Experience orchestration provides the real-time next best experience in the moment.

In the age of customer-centric business, personalization isn’t just a bonus for customers. It’s a necessity, and any brand looking to cultivate and maintain customer loyalty needs to personalize experiences immediately and contextually.

#3. Customer obsession isn't easy — unless you have the right technology for your CX strategy

Obsessed with your customers? Of course you are. In every industry, customer obsession motivates brands to deliver experiences that delight customers. It’s easier said than done without a reliable customer experience management (CEM) platform, however.

Henrik Christensen , Senior Director of Customer & Market Intelligence at Albertsons Companies , joined Medallia for a session in which he explored how the company built a modern omnichannel CX program centered around the relentless pursuit to win customers for life. As one of the largest supermarket chains in the United States, Albertsons strives for all of its 2,200-plus stores to deliver the seamless experiences that customers have come to expect from all retail interactions.

In the session, Christensen explained how Albertsons collects feedback from every channel and earns nearly 30 million surveys per year, democratizes data and insights to deliver insights across the organization, and translates a customer-first vision into store-specific goals and actions that drive innovation and growth in net promoter score (NPS®).

Brands want to emulate what Albertsons has accomplished, and it starts with pairing a CEM platform like Medallia — replacing disparate point solutions —  with a passion for customer obsession.

#4. Contact centers are transforming into profit centers

Gone are the days in which the contact center is a money-draining area of business. Now, the most successful brands tap into a wealth of data to coach agents, prioritize improvement opportunities, and operate customer service teams as profit centers.

Rather than providing only service recovery, the modern contact center experience is prepared to communicate clearly, empathetically, and efficiently to achieve customers’ preferred solutions in record time. Contact center leaders enjoy happier, more loyal customers who remain with the brand for years to come — strengthening retention and increasing customer lifetime value.

AAA-The Auto Club Group ’s Kelly Speer led a session with Medallia on the second-largest AAA club in North America’s use of conversation intelligence and how the technology drives CX strategy, insights, and action.

“Think about the entire picture. Don’t just think about it as the customer — you still need to have the agent side taken into account,” Speer shared in her final remarks for the audience, reminding the audience how integral the contact center is to a successful CX program.

#5. Generative AI applies to customer experience, too

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in business is more than a hot trend that will fade out — it's here to stay, and businesses are deploying it in full force. It was a much-talked-about topic at Forrester CX North America this year, with a variety of sessions touching on generative AI and what it means for customer experience.

In the keynote address, it was highlighted that generative AI should be a top priority for every leader and each organization's use of the technology will vary.

Ride the Wave with Medallia — Meet with an Expert

Forrester CX North America 2023 served as a reminder that, as the market-leading enterprise experience platform, Medallia is the unrivaled choice for brands seeking to identify every opportunity to deliver exceptional experiences for customers. It was a terrific conference in Nashville, and we thank everyone who stopped by our booth and joined our sessions to discuss all things customer experience.

Let’s keep the conversation going — meet with a Medallia expert, and discover why Forrester named Medallia the Leader in the Forrester Wave™: Customer Feedback Management, Q1 2023.

- Justin Herrick , Senior Manager of Content Marketing at Medallia