• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

For all the talk about the customer experience (CX), companies have yet to fully master the process, judging by The Global State of CX 2025, a study from the CX Network. 

For one thing, CX practitioners admit they face these challenges: 

• Competing priorities — 36%
• Building a customer-first culture — 32%
• Aligning business objectives with CX initiatives — 25%
• Creating actionable insights from data — 16%
• Linking CX initiatives to ROI—16%
• Siloed customer data: Incomplete customer profiles, disconnected customer experiences — 12%
• Inflexible processes — 12%
• Insufficient customer data — 10%
• Gaining senior management buy-in — 10%
• Managing customer data — 9%

AI does not seem to be widely applied, at least not to lead generation. 

“Though I’m starting to see some AI powered lead generation capabilities, they are still at the early stages, heavily reliant on cold email marketing, LinkedIn messaging or call center marketing and not really proven yet,” says Jaslyin Qiyu, founder of Mad About Marketing Consulting and a CX Network Advisory Board member.

“[Practitioners] will face similar challenges as their predecessors doing these activities in a manual way unless there is a value-added layer that truly differentiates their capabilities," Qiyu adds.

How would that work? “This can be real-time industry level or client insights that allows the lead generation content to be customized in real-time, or even smart responses based on the reactions of the prospects,” Qiyu says.

Where are brands investing this year? Their CX priorities are:

• Automation of CX and service functions — 24%
• AI/ML for business operations — 20%
• Customer engagement — 19%
• Conversational AI chatbots and virtual assistants — 18%
• Business continuity — 17%
• CRM — 16%
• Data insights, analytics — 16%
• Contact center solutions — 14%
• Customer acquisition — 14%
• Employees: Overall experience and/or training/development — 11%
• Voice of the customer/voice of the employee — 11%

And what are their obstacles in bringing these investments to life?

• Demonstrating ROI — 39%
• Finding budget — 35%
• Integration with existing tools — 31%
• Gaining buy-in from internal/external stakeholders — 21%
• Complicated internet sign-off process — 21%
• Economic conditions in local/regional market — 19%
• Staff skills/training — 19%
• Complexity in vendor market—16%
• Economic conditions in global markets—14%

CX Network surveyed 353 CX practitioners, service leaders, experience designers and consultants late last year.