As businesses head into 2026, they face a convergence of disruptive forces that are amplifying both operational and strategic risk. Slowing economic growth, volatile supply chains, rising customer expectations, and accelerating technological changes are placing unprecedented pressure on organizations across industries. At the same time, talent shortages, regulatory uncertainty, and heightened competitive intensity are forcing leaders to make faster, more consequential decisions — often with incomplete or conflicting information.
Together, these challenges have created an environment where misalignment, inaction, or misunderstanding the customer carries unprecedented costs — elevating business risk and making insight-driven strategy essential for long-term success.
The Current VoC Reality
A growing minority of organizations have gone “all in” on Voice of Customer (VoC) to de-risk decision-making, using it not just as a survey program but as a core operating and strategic discipline. These companies connect feedback from multiple channels, tie it explicitly to financial outcomes, and use it to inform everything from product roadmaps and service design to frontline coaching and capital allocation.
Research shows that when VoC is done well, the payoff is significant: companies with effective VoC programs report substantial gains in revenue growth and customer loyalty. Yet these leaders are still the exception, not the rule.
Recent analysis based on Forrester research indicates that only about 12% of VoC programs consider themselves “highly mature,” while more than half remain stuck in “analysis paralysis.”
For most organizations, the problem isn’t a lack of data — it’s a lack of action. Gartner has reported that while roughly 95% of companies actively collect customer feedback, only 10% systematically use that feedback to improve their products and services, and a mere 5% close the loop by telling customers what changed as a result.
Other surveys suggest that nearly 40% of companies don’t even ask for feedback on a regular basis. And a growing trust gap is emerging: about 76% of business leaders believe they understand their customers well, but only 25% of consumers agree.
As a result, customers are increasingly tuning out. Industry commentary now points to “survey fatigue” and a perception that companies are no longer truly listening — further eroding confidence in VoC metrics and undermining their ability to guide strategic and operational decisions.
Why Traditional Metrics — and New AI Tools — Aren’t Enough
Many organizations continue to rely on a single metric, Net Promoter Score (NPS), to gauge customer loyalty. But growing research and market evidence show that NPS alone does not explain what truly drives customer behavior or business outcomes.
At the same time, as organizations rush to adopt AI-driven platforms that promise real-time feedback and predictive insights, many risk repeating the same mistake — expecting technology to deliver meaning without a sound measurement foundation.
It’s time to rethink how to maximize the impact of VoC investment and move beyond convenience and traditional metrics to focus on what truly matters: business outcomes and actionable insights.
The Limits of NPS (and Why It Still Matters — But Isn’t Enough)
NPS became popular for its simplicity: one question, one score, an easy snapshot of loyalty intention. But simplicity can mask complexity.
As Forrester explains, a comprehensive CX measurement framework should include three categories of metrics:
- Perception (e.g., satisfaction, NPS)
- Interaction (specific touchpoint performance)
- Outcome (how CX drives business results)
Relying solely on perception metrics provides an incomplete view of performance.
Forrester’s research also emphasizes that while perception data is useful for understanding how customers feel, it does not, on its own, predict financial results. Only when companies connect these metrics to behaviors such as retention, repurchase, and share of wallet do they uncover the true value of CX.
Overemphasis on NPS can therefore create a false sense of progress — improving a score without improving performance. In its CX Predictions 2025, Forrester cautions that many CX leaders risk falling into metric obsession — continuing to track scores long after they’ve lost connection to business impact.
The False Comfort of “AI-Enhanced” CX
The latest generation of AI-powered CX platforms promises to revolutionize feedback collection and analysis with sentiment detection, natural language processing, and predictive modeling. These tools are powerful — but they are not a strategy.
Forrester’s Predictions 2025 highlights that most CX teams using AI will “get stuck in analysis mode,” flooded with unstructured data but unable to act on it effectively. AI can uncover patterns but not priorities. It can describe what is happening but not why it matters — or how to change it.
Without a strong measurement framework that links CX findings to customer behavior and financial results, companies risk mistaking automation for understanding. AI should augment human insight, not replace it.
Building a Smarter CX Measurement Framework
To make CX measurement meaningful — and financially relevant — organizations must evolve beyond score-centric and tech-centric approaches. A holistic CX strategy finds the alignment between what customers experience with what they do, combining perception, operational, and financial data into a unified system that measures cause and effect and lead to internal initiatives that increase market share.
Key elements of a smarter CX measurement framework include:
- Measure outcomes, not attitudes. Focus on retention, purchase behavior, share of wallet, and cost to serve — the metrics that directly influence profitability.
- Incorporate operational and behavioral data. Link sales and service performance (resolution times, digital friction, support success) to customer experience dynamics.
- Use AI for depth, not distraction. Let AI improve actioning and interpretation and ensure insights are framed in a business context.
- Blend quantitative, qualitative feedback and operational data sources. Combine surveys, interviews, and unstructured data with behavioral data sets to financially prioritize specific opportunities.
- Link VoC insights to ROI. Verde Group research shows that reducing most damaging customer friction by 10% can result in a 2% – 5% increase in revenues and profits.
When done right, VoC measurement stops being a scorecard and becomes a strategic growth engine.
How The Verde Group Helps Businesses Get It Right
- We identify the financial levers behind customer behavior.
Unlike many VoC programs that measure everything and explain nothing, The Verde Group focuses on uncovering the experiences that have the greatest financial impact — not just collecting scores. - We bridge the gap between customer insights and organizational action.
Our methodology quantifies how specific customer experiences drive financial outcomes, translating feedback into operationally relevant, economically meaningful guidance. - We isolate the “critical few” experiences that matter most.
Rather than relying on conventional survey scores or broad sentiment metrics, we identify the experiences that create the greatest economic drag — showing precisely where revenue is at risk, why it is at risk, and which actions will recover the most value. This transforms VoC from a measurement exercise into an economic decision engine. - We show leaders the financial impact of pain points in clear, dollar terms.
Leaders no longer have to guess which issues matter most. Our approach reveals exactly which frictions are eroding loyalty, reducing share of wallet, or diminishing lifetime value — and quantifies the potential upside of fixing them. - We enable confident, aligned, cross-functional action.
By linking every insight to its financial implications, decision-makers gain the confidence to act quickly and prioritize resources around the issues that matter most to the business. - We operationalize insights to drive culture, innovation, and accountability.
What truly differentiates The Verde Group is our ability to embed these insights into the organization — creating a shared language for prioritization that unites executives, operators, and frontline teams. This clarity de-risks decision-making, accelerates transformation, and ensures investments and improvements are rooted in validated business impact rather than intuition or anecdote.
We don’t just measure customer experience — we connect it directly to business impact.
The Takeaway: Measurement Without Meaning Is Just Noise
As 2026 approaches, CX teams that continue to chase NPS benchmarks or lean too heavily on black-box AI dashboards will find themselves overwhelmed by data but short on direction.
The future belongs to organizations that combine technology, analytics, and human expertise to create a complete understanding of customer experience — one that’s grounded in financial outcomes and operational clarity.
at The Verde Group, we believe the goal isn’t to collect more data — it’s to make that data meaningful.
Let’s make 2026 the year CX measurement grows up: smarter, sharper, and truly connected to business performance.