Global Customer Experience Excellence (CEE) 2025-2026

A benchmark study now in its 16th year, CEE captures perspectives from over 80,000 consumers across 16 markets worldwide

A benchmark study now in its 16th year, CEE captures perspectives from over 80,000 ...

Total Experience: Redefining excellence in the age of agentic AI

Customer expectations are accelerating faster than companies can adapt. They now demand seamless, anticipatory, and personalised interactions across every channel and every moment of engagement.

This year’s Global Customer Experience Excellence (CEE) research highlights how leading organisations are responding. Drawing on a global sample of over 80,000 consumers, the findings show that organisations are moving beyond reactive service to orchestrate proactive, predictive experience powered by agentic AI.

At the core of this shift is Total Experience, aligning customer, employee, partner, and ecosystem interaction around outcomes that build loyalty, advocacy, and growth.

Key insights from this year’s report

Customer experience is undergoing a profound transformation

It is moving from experimentation to execution, influencing how customer decisions are made and how employees deliver outcomes in real time.

Total Experience is the new standard

Leading organisations are unifying customer, employee, partner, and ecosystem interactions into one adaptive model of engagement.

Excellence drives growth and resilience

Organisations investing in trust, personalisation, and integration are outperforming peers, while laggards risk widening the gap.

Sector performance highlighted

Customer experience and performance often varies by sector. This year’s results highlight both progress and ongoing challenges:

Retail

outperforms the global average by 2.4%, showing that operational efficiency and ease directly translate into stronger advocacy.

Healthcare

stands out with empathy (+3.4%) and resolution (+1.1%), reinforcing its position as a benchmark for trust-based service.

Banking

improved in empathy (+1.4%) and expectations (+1.3%), demonstrating progress in building emotional trust with customers.

Public sector

continues to lag, scoring 9.4% below the global average, underlining the urgent need to reimagine personalisation at scale.

Utilities

rose by 2.2%, driven by gains in integrity and empathy, though gaps in time and effort remain.

Explore detailed sector insights in the full report. Discover the full story behind these insights and explore what it takes to deliver Total Experience at scale.