The importance of CX for business cannot be undermined. It is emphasized across categories, for all levels and for all functions as well, as a key ability to acquire, retain and maximize trust with customers over a period of time. Which further goes to impact the size, scale and success of the business.
Unlike other functional areas of expertise, which largely reside with a defined vertical, CX is a multi-disciplinary approach and its outcome is dependent on multiple functions and tiers in an organization. Almost everyone has a play in delivering great CX to the end consumers.
Whilst most brands measure customer voice thru NPS and CSAT studies, however these are just proxies for a certain aspect of their relationship with the brand. If your goal is to measure the ability of the organization to deliver great experience to customers, you can assess the maturity level of your processes and capabilities through a 5 tier categorization.
5 Maturity Levels of CX
0 | Dormant |
1 | Beginner |
2 | Learner |
3 | Committed |
4 | Mature |
5 | Benchmark |
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0. Dormant – organizations that have not yet started their journey towards CX, where experience occurs passively rather than intentionally
1. Beginner - At the initial stage, CX is not a strategic focus for the company. Efforts to enhance CX are sporadic, inconsistent, and lack a unified strategy. CX initiatives are typically reactive rather than proactive. In companies at this level, managing customer experience is generally viewed as dealing with complaints.
2. Learner - The company acknowledges the importance of CX and starts implementing initiatives. However, these efforts are not fully coordinated or aligned throughout the organization. There might be pockets of CX excellence in specific departments or teams, but a comprehensive and cohesive approach is missing.
3. Committed - The company might have begun gathering customer feedback and conducting basic analyses, but it is not yet an integral part of decision-making processes. Closing the loop is not yet operational. The customer experience department is not established or represented on the board of directors. At this stage, customer experience management processes are typically handled by CRM or marketing teams.
4. Mature - CX becomes a strategic priority for the company. There is a specialized CX team or leader responsible for driving CX initiatives. The organization has set up processes, resources, and metrics to evaluate and enhance CX. Customer feedback is actively collected, analyzed, and used to guide decision-making. CX is integrated across various departments, fostering a growing culture of customer-centricity
5. Benchmark - the highest level of CX maturity. CX is deeply embedded in the company's culture and is a fundamental aspect of its identity. The organization consistently delivers outstanding experiences and strives for continuous enhancement. CX is a strategic priority at all levels, from the executive team to frontline employees. The company actively pursues innovation and differentiation through CX, often establishing industry standards and benchmarks. At this level, customer and employee experience management complement each other, much like a well-coordinated machine
Structured assessment across 10 competency drivers
The assessment is carried out to measure competencies for 10 different CX elements comprising customer strategy, VOC, journey, metrics, structure, technology and culture. As technology and processes evolve over time, organizations continue to invest in building their competence deploying various best practices, tools, processes and KPI measures.
The diagnostic tool C-Xcel WIEU is structured to measure indicators and their adoption/ perception by different set of people across the width and depth of the organizational structure.
Lets take an example of CX metrics and processes to track them – the tool obviously measures the customer KPIs that are monitored by the team/s, including ownership and SOP’s to review them in a timely fashion with the ability to act on learnings & close-loop them in the shortest possible window. It also tracks the robustness of resolutions provided and whether these are transactional (one-off) or systemic (self evolving) so that the process becomes robust & self-sufficient by itself.
In order to make a fair assessment and arrive at the maturity, a process of measuring the capabilities & practices is deployed through a diagnostic study with a designed set of employees, across fixed departments and levels (representing leadership, middle management & front-line employees). By deploying the diagnostic with a statistically valid sample set of employees, one can derive hypotheses wrt the understanding of CX elements in the eco-system.
Build your customised CX maturity roadmap
Post conducting the study, using the proprietary tool – WIEU - the organization can see for itself, how it ranks on maturity –
1. at overall org level,
2. Differential scores across functions
3. Differential across tiers and
4. A mix of 3 & 4
The report provides rich insights into specific areas that the organization needs to focus on to enhance its capabilities to deliver wow experiences to customers. In fact, it shows a complete roadmap of key initiatives (along with priorities) that ought to be undertaken over a period of time, to enhance the CX maturity.
Whilst the end result is a score and some organisations may fall between maturity levels – the idea is to assess broadly where your company currently stands and identify the necessary steps to progress towards higher levels of CX maturity.

Would you like to determine the CX maturity level of your business and carry the customer experience you offer into the future? For more information, reg the tool or the process, pls get in touch with C-Xcel at anjali@c-xcel.com
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