Bram De VosThe customer experience trends that will shape 2027 are already visible in what CX managers did in 2026. Only 13% of the companies surveyed are strong across all six dimensions of CX maturity. 48% never calculate the financial impact of their CX work. And just 26% report customer experience directly to the CEO or board, down from 48% in 2021.
Those numbers come from the 2026 CX Maturity Study, a survey of 203 CX managers in 20 countries that Loyalty Group ran in partnership with Hello Customer. This article explains how the study was built, walks through the seven trends the data points to, and ends with the three questions worth putting on your next management agenda. The full report is embedded below, free to read and download.
Key takeaways:
- Only 13% of the companies surveyed score high on all six CX maturity dimensions; 54% sit in a broad middle and 33% are still at an early stage.
- Customer experience is moving away from the decision table: 26% of CX managers report directly to the CEO or board, against 48% in Loyalty Group's 2021 study.
- 48% of companies never calculate the financial impact of their CX work, and documenting that value is the second-biggest challenge in the whole survey.
- AI is still an experiment for most: 47% use it in isolated cases and only 10% have made it a natural part of how they design and deliver experiences.
- The mature companies have cleared the internal obstacles that stop everyone else from acting on what they already know, and silos are the biggest of those obstacles. Their customer understanding is no better than the rest's.
How the 2026 CX Maturity Study was made
The 2026 CX Maturity Study is an online survey of 203 CX managers, run between February and April 2026. Loyalty Group, a Danish consultancy that has worked on customer loyalty since 1992, ran it in partnership with Hello Customer, our voice of customer platform. Mikkel Korntved and Sara Landin Riis of Loyalty Group wrote the report; I contributed to it as their business partner. Respondents came from 20 countries, mostly Denmark, Norway, Finland, Germany and Belgium, and around half work at companies with more than 1,000 employees. B2B and B2C are both represented.
The questionnaire has 46 questions in four areas: strategy, management, measurement and business impact. Maturity is scored on a rule-based index of six dimensions developed by the Norwegian company Customer C: strategy, measurement, improvement, management ownership, management support for employees, and documentation. A company counts as highly mature only when it scores 4 or 5 on all six. One weak dimension pulls it into the middle, which mirrors how customers judge a company: by the weakest link, never by the average.
One caveat matters for reading the trends. Everyone who answered works at a company that has already put customer experience on the agenda and funded it. The gaps below are the gaps among the convinced. Across companies in general, they are wider.
| The study at a glance | |
|---|---|
| Respondents | 203 CX managers, B2B and B2C |
| Countries | 20, mostly Denmark, Norway, Finland, Germany and Belgium |
| Fieldwork | February to April 2026, online questionnaire |
| Questions | 46, across strategy, management, measurement and business impact |
| Maturity index | Six dimensions, rule-based, developed by Customer C |
| Highly mature | Score of 4 or 5 on all six dimensions |
| Authors | Mikkel Korntved and Sara Landin Riis, Loyalty Group |
Trend 1: only 13% are CX mature, and the rest risk falling behind
The first customer experience trend for 2027 is a split. 13% of the companies in the study are strong on all six maturity dimensions, 54% have real strengths but no coherence, and 33% are at an early stage. The middle is where most readers will recognise themselves. The report calls it the dangerous place to be, because the middle feels like progress. 32% have implemented a structured CX effort, 43% are underway, and 75% run an ongoing measurement programme.
The mature companies behave differently, and the difference is bigger than being further along the same road. 72% of them have implemented a structured effort, against 34% of the middle group and 12% of the least mature. 56% see customer experience as decisive for their future, against 23% and 15%. The pattern reinforces itself: they have seen the work pay, so they keep investing, while the rest treat CX as a project that competes with every other project.
"After more than 30 years of CX research and consulting, the pattern still repeats itself every time: everyone starts strong," writes Mikkel Korntved, CEO of Loyalty Group, in the report. "But the companies that win the CX game are the ones who keep going once it stops being easy." To place your own organisation, use Forrester's four levels in our CX maturity model guide; they map closely onto the study's three groups.
Trend 2: customer experience is drifting away from the boardroom
The second trend runs against the story CX teams like to tell. In 2026, only 26% of CX managers report customer experience directly to the CEO or board. In Loyalty Group's 2021 study, 48% did. Customer experience has many owners and little mandate. 60% of respondents hold overall responsibility for CX and 50% work in a dedicated CX role. Only 49% have budget responsibility, and the role is more often advisory than governing.
Management ownership turns out to be the strongest single relationship in the survey. Only 13% of respondents rate their management's ownership of CX as very strong, and 31% place it at the low end. Just 9% say management strongly backs the ways of working that improve the experience. Where ownership is weakest, 74% of companies end up in the low-maturity group. Where it is medium or high, 27% do.
"If customer experience doesn't have a name and a mandate on the executive team, it doesn't have an owner. It has volunteers," Korntved writes. The practical consequence for 2027: the CX manager's first job becomes securing that owner. Our guide to executive buy-in for a VoC programme covers how. The CX team structure then has to give whoever drives the work a mandate across departments.
Trend 3: CX budgets get defended in euros, or cut
The third trend is financial. 59% of companies say their CX work significantly affects business results, yet 48% never calculate that financial impact. Documenting the economic value of CX work is the second-biggest challenge in the survey (49%), and arguing for long-term CX investment is the third (43%). Meanwhile 24% already feel a moderately negative effect of the economic climate on their CX work, and 9% a significantly negative one. Only 17% say the pressure drives investment.
The measurement gap tracks maturity closely. Among the least mature companies, 75% never calculate the financial impact; in the middle group 41%; among the most mature 16%. The report's reading is that documentation creates maturity as much as it results from it. Without a number, the investment cannot be defended. The effort goes half-hearted, and a half-hearted effort never produces the result that would have documented the value.
Revenue growth illustrates it. 67% of companies grew last year, but only 6% can attribute that growth directly to their CX work; 38% see a partial connection and 43% are uncertain. "In more than 400 projects, we've never once seen an executive team defend a feeling. They defend a number," Korntved writes. The method for producing that number is in our guide to customer experience ROI. Impact tracking then keeps the chain from fix to retained revenue visible without rebuilding the analysis every quarter.
Trend 4: business metrics move up next to the scores
The fourth trend is a shift in the measurement mix, and it follows from the third. Today the CX field measures attitudes well and money poorly. NPS and CSAT are used by three companies out of four. Business metrics trail far behind, and 19% of companies use no business metric at all in their CX work.
| Metric used in the CX programme | Share of companies |
|---|---|
| NPS | 74% |
| CSAT | 72% |
| Churn | 54% |
| Revenue per customer | 45% |
| Customer retention | 34% |
| Sentiment | 33% |
| Customer lifetime value | 31% |
| CES | 30% |
Perception metrics are early warning lights, and useful ones. The gap is the last step, from score to cash. An NPS movement can be followed to revenue: a customer who moves from detractor to promoter buys more, stays longer and recommends, and each movement has a calculable value. The mature companies in the study keep NPS and build on it, linking perception metrics to churn and customer lifetime value. Our overview of the customer experience metrics worth tracking shows how the three layers, perception, behaviour and operations, sit together in one report.
Trend 5: AI splits the field into efficiency and value
The fifth trend is AI, and the study's numbers are more sober than the conference agenda. 15% of companies do not use AI in customer experience at all. 47% experiment in isolated cases, 20% use it to drive efficiency, and only 10% have made AI a natural part of how they design and deliver experiences. Where it is used, it mostly goes toward making the existing setup cheaper: cutting cost and easing the load on staff.
The divide is about ambition, and ambition follows maturity. The mature companies treat AI as a source of new customer value; the less mature treat it as a way to run the current setup at lower cost. As the report puts it, AI can scale a good customer experience, but just as easily a bad one. A chatbot on top of a poorly understood journey frustrates customers faster, and automating a process nobody rethought compounds what was already wrong.
The market is arriving at the same conclusion the slow way. Gartner predicts that half of the companies that cut customer service staff because of AI will rehire for similar functions under different job titles by 2027. It also predicts that more than half of customer service organisations will double their technology spend by 2028, without an equivalent reduction in talent. Both can be true if the money moves from replacing people to reading customers. An engine such as ISAAC classifies every open comment, and a key driver analysis then shows which themes move the score before anyone builds a bot on top of them.
Trend 6: the obstacle is internal, and it is called a silo
The sixth trend is where CX managers point when asked what holds them back. They point inward. Breaking down organisational silos is the biggest challenge (58%). Documenting the economic value of CX comes second (49%), then arguing for long-term investment (43%), access to structured and relevant data (37%), inadequate IT systems (37%) and support from management (34%). A further 31% struggle to keep the experience consistent across functions.
The report's diagnosis is blunt: silos are a management-created problem. Departments are measured on different goals with different systems and budgets, so the customer experiences one company while the organisation is built as many. A CX manager cannot close that gap from below. Someone with authority over several departments has to decide that the customer's journey weighs more than the individual department's numbers.
The outside view agrees that the field is stuck. In Forrester's 2026 CX Index, 8% of the 72 European brands measured improved, 1% declined and 91% were statistically unchanged. The analysts describe the state of CX as incremental change rather than breakthrough progress. The work that moves a journey across departments is what customer experience design covers: evidence per moment, one promise, a change on the front stage and in the machinery behind it.
Trend 7: follow-up after complaints becomes the cheapest advantage
The seventh trend comes from a single line in the study, and it may be the most useful number in it. Only 34% of companies consistently follow up after a complaint, at the moment when customers are most impressionable and the insight is most valuable. Two companies out of three leave it to chance whether the customer who spoke up hears anything back.
That gap sits against a hard backdrop. The ACSI's second-quarter 2026 report records a sharp decline in US customer satisfaction, surpassed only once this century, with customer complaints at record levels and pent-up customer defection looming.
Follow-up is the one lever in this list that needs no reorganisation and no budget cycle. Route every low score to the person who owns the touchpoint, with a deadline, and re-measure; that is what automated close-the-loop does at volume. The customer retention strategies that change the numbers start there, because a problem handled fast and personally often leaves the relationship stronger than before it happened.
Frequently asked questions
What is the 2026 CX Maturity Study?
The 2026 CX Maturity Study is a survey of 203 CX managers in 20 countries, conducted by Loyalty Group between February and April 2026. It measures how far companies that already prioritise customer experience have come in strategy, management ownership, measurement and business impact, and scores each on a six-dimension maturity index.
How is CX maturity measured in the study?
CX maturity in the study is a rule-based index across six dimensions: strategy, measurement, improvement, management ownership, management support for employees, and documentation. A company is highly mature only if it scores 4 or 5 on all six; 13% do. Companies with strengths but a weak dimension fall into the medium group (54%), and 33% are classed as low maturity. The index was developed by the Norwegian company Customer C.
What percentage of companies are CX mature?
13% of the companies in the 2026 CX Maturity Study are highly mature, 54% are in the middle and 33% are at an early stage. Because every respondent already works at a company that prioritises customer experience, the share of mature companies across the market as a whole is likely lower.
What are the biggest customer experience challenges going into 2027?
The biggest CX challenges in the study are organisational silos (58%), documenting the economic value of CX work (49%) and arguing for long-term CX investments (43%). Access to structured data (37%), inadequate IT systems (37%) and management support (34%) follow. All three top challenges point at the executive team rather than at customers.
Which customer experience metrics do companies use most?
NPS (74%) and CSAT (72%) are the most-used CX metrics in the study. Business metrics are used far less: churn by 54%, revenue per customer by 45%, customer retention by 34% and customer lifetime value by 31%. 19% of companies use no business metric at all in their CX work.
Where can I download the full CX Maturity Study?
The full 24-page report is embedded in this article and can be read on the page or downloaded as a PDF from the viewer, with no form to fill in. Loyalty Group has said it will publish further deep-dive articles on the data on its own site.
Three questions for your next management meeting
The report closes with three questions, and they are a better summary of what 2027 asks of CX leaders than any trend list. Does our executive team own the customer experience, or have we delegated it away? Do we convert our customer numbers into hard cash, or do we stop at the score? Does our technology build on a foundation, or does it hide the fact that the foundation is missing? If "yes" is hard on all three, you are in the majority, and you know where the work is.
My reading of the data is that 2027 will reward the unglamorous order. An owner at the top first. A number the finance team accepts second. The silos cleared third, with AI applied to a journey the organisation already understands. Run the customer experience audit checklist this autumn if you want an evidence base for those three answers. And if you would like to see what your own feedback says about where you stand, book a demo: we run it on your data, not on a slide deck.