In a previous blog post about the Customer Experience Index for US brands In 2016, Harley Manning contrasted the rising tide of CX quality with the stagnation among top brands.

In this post I'll explore another big finding from our research: CX-fueled digital disruption. In this year's CX Index results we found that:

  • Wireless service providers continue their advance, floating all digital boats. This year we saw an advance by the wireless service providers that help enable digital disruption through their networks: The high, low, and average scores for the industry all went up. Just as telling, seven of the 11 brands in our rankings improved while the remaining four brands' scores stayed the same. This general upward movement pushed the industry into fifth place overall.
  • Over-the-top (OTT) services crush incumbent TV service providers. This year, for the first time, the CX Index includes OTT service providers — companies like Hulu and Netflix that distribute video over the internet through a subscription model instead of through a legacy pay-TV provider. In their debut, even the lowest-scoring OTT service provider beat the highest-scoring cable company. OTT providers' universal superiority signals a huge threat to the revenue streams of traditional subscription TV services.
  • Digital-only retailers trounce traditional retailers on overall scores and emotion. As an industry, online retailers had a higher high score, a higher low score, and a higher average score than their bricks-and-clicks competitors. Online retailers also refuted the naysayers who argue that digital can't deliver the emotional magic of in-person experiences. In fact, digital retailers delivered about 25% more positive emotional experiences for every negative one than traditional retailers.

There's much more actionable insight in the CX Index for 2016. In the third and final post of this series, Roxie Strohmenger will discuss what we found out about the relationship between emotion and CX.