Dive Brief:
- CX leaders are optimistic about growing budgets in 2024 and three-quarters expect their budgets to increase in the next year, according to a Forrester survey of nearly 300 CX decision-makers, published in a report earlier this month. In comparison, less than two-thirds expected their budgets to grow in 2023.
- However, only 2 in 5 decision-makers expect those budgets to increase more than 5% — and outpace inflation.
- “Despite the increase, ongoing inflation will challenge CX teams’ spending power, reinforcing the need for deliberate choices around where to invest, cut, and experiment,” Katy Cobian, VP and executive partner at Forrester, said in an email.
Dive Insight:
Optimistic about growing budgets in the year ahead, CX leaders are prioritizing technological investments and initiatives their teams lead, according to Forrester.
About a third expect to increase spending on technology and CX-led projects above the rate of inflation. Data and research, personnel and services were lower priorities.
Notably, some personnel budgets have taken hits, with 13% of CX leaders saying they expect their budgets in personnel to decline.
The decline in personnel budgets shouldn’t necessarily cause alarm, said Jon Picoult, founder and principal of Watermark Consulting, a customer experience advisory firm. CX can span many departments, and personnel may be located elsewhere in the organization.
The fact that CX can be housed in so many departments also poses issues when it comes to determining CX budgetary investments, according to Picoult.
“We’ve got to be careful drawing conclusions about where CX teams are investing their budgets, because the way many CX programs are set up, those teams are driving and/or overseeing CX-related initiatives that are funded by other functional units,” he said in an email.
Picoult suggests looking broadly at projects across an enterprise that CX teams may be influencing or shepherding along.
“A billing statement overhaul, for example, may be funded by a billing department, even though the CX team were the ones pushing those enhancements,” he said.
