Don’t miss the latest in a series of reports we've published about the state of customer experience around the world. We have told you how companies in India, Australia, China,the US, and Canada perform. It’s time to shed some light on the European CX landscape, by looking at which French, German, and UK brands create the most loyalty with their customer experience. There’s good news and bad news in this latest CX Index report. Let's get the bad news out of the way first: 

  • The majority of brands in the UK, Germany, and France deliver mediocre experiences. In an era where customer obsession is the best strategy for winning and retaining customers,the unfortunate reality is that no brands in the UK, Germany, or France achieved excellent scores, and only 12% and 14% received a good score in the UK and Germany, respectively.
  • Not a single brand’s CX in France achieved even a good score. Adding to the bad news, 5% of French brands ranked in the very-poor category. 

But don’t lose heart! There is some good news in the report too – for some industries more than others:

  • Financial services firms hold the lead in all three markets. Credit card companies and banks seized the top eight slots in the UK. In Germany, financial services firms pocketed the top two slots, and in France, seven insurers are among the top 13 brands. But don’t rest on your laurels financial-services companies! Retailers like Marks & Spencer offering financial services are doing so with success. (single period here, not three dots)
  • Just as in the US, digital-only retailers outpaced their store-operating peers in each of these markets. Factors like selection and the Web’s shop-anytime ease give online sellers an inherent advantage when it comes to CX.

If you are a global brand reading this blog post, don’t underestimate the power of native brands in Europe. UK-, German-, and French-based brands dominate their national best-of-breed lists. That being said, Amazon is the only brand to score a hat trick, as the highest-scoring digital-only retailer brand in all three markets.

There’s more analysis in the report itself. For instance, we examine the role of emotion in driving loyalty, which varies by country and industry. Read the report to find out which country bucks the trend when it comes to the role of emotion in driving loyalty! And get in touch if you have ideas as to why that might be the case. I’m happy to take inquiry calls to talk about our findings and what they mean for CX professionals. And for the statistics junkies out there, details on the CX Index benchmark data product are on Forrester’s website.