The Reality CX Leaders Must Confront—and the Future We Must Build

Customer experience (CX) leaders are resilient. You’ve fought for a seat at the table. You’ve championed the customer’s voice. You’ve worked tirelessly to demonstrate the importance of great experiences.

But if we’re honest, too many CX programs—and even broader XM programs—aren’t keeping up with rapid changes in the business world, driven by the rise of AI. And the uncomfortable truth is this: in the eyes of many executives, XM is seen as an administrative function rather than a strategic driver of business growth.

It’s time we confront this reality head-on.

Struggles of the CX Leader

If you’ve felt unseen or undervalued within your organization, you’re not alone. Traditional XM programs run into roadblocks that can feel discouraging. Here are some challenges that CX leaders might be able to relate to:

• Image: You’re often viewed as tactical rather than strategic.
• Value: You struggle to prove tangible, bottom-line impact.
• One-Dimensional: You’re focused almost exclusively on experience data (surveys, NPS, satisfaction scores).
• Reactive: You’re reporting on problems after they happen, not predicting or preventing them.
• Savvy: You’re perceived as less tech-savvy than your peers in IT, operations, or marketing.
• Connectivity: You lack the tools and skill set to align and integrate data across silos.
• Access: You don’t have visibility into the right behavioral and operational data.
• Connected: You’re not serving a broad enough range of internal stakeholders.
• Dependence: Few other functions rely on your insights to run the business.
• Stuck: You’re not adapting quickly enough to disruptive technologies reshaping business today.

Do any of these examples sound familiar? These struggles don’t reflect CX leaders’ talent or dedication—they reflect an outdated model. The old model of XM was not built for today’s pace of business. The solution isn’t working harder, it’s working differently.

The path forward: Unified XM

Here’s the good news: there’s a way out.

The next evolution of XM leadership isn’t about doing more surveys or building better dashboards. It’s about intentionally and strategically unifying the Experience (X) data you excel at capturing with the Behavioral (B) and Operational (O) data into a connected system of intelligence that drives real business action.

This is what we call Unified Experience Management (Unified XM).

With Unified XM, CX leaders can:

• Move from surveys alone to a 360° view of the customer.
• Predict customer needs, not just react to them.
• Connect CX insights to real business outcomes, proving ROI in ways executives can’t ignore.
• Break down silos, align with more stakeholders, and become the connective tissue of the enterprise.
• Leverage disruptive technologies—like AI—not as threats, but as accelerators for impact.

When I said “360° view of the customer” did your eyes roll? 

You’ve heard that idealistic jargon before, right? Well, my eyes used to roll too, but not anymore. AI now makes that a reality. But that 360° view of the customer is not a static dashboard—static dashboards will quickly become far less utilized than they are today. Instead, imagine asking an AI assistant: ‘Show me enterprise accounts renewing soon with declining experience signals. Rank them by health score and recommend the top action to save the relationship.’ 

This is no longer science fiction—it’s the new reality when BOX data is unified on a single customer intelligence platform.

The time is now. CX Leaders must seize the opportunity. 

Are you a CX leader focused on managing activities—launching surveys, running reports, managing dashboards—or are you a CX leader focused on delivering business outcomes? What matters is whether customer insights are shaping strategy, driving revenue, reducing churn, and creating measurable impact. To evolve, CX leaders must stop being seen as the measurers of customer experience and start being recognized as drivers of outcomes—the ones who connect customer understanding directly to business performance.

Yes, change is hard. But staying the same is harder.

At Walker, we’ve always been trailblazers in Experience Management—and now we’re trailblazing again with Unified XM. Our unmatched expertise in Experience (X) data and the Qualtrics platform gives us a foundation no one else can match. But we don’t stop there. We’re building deep competencies in modern data platforms like Databricks and Snowflake to unify BOX data at scale, proving out the methodology of Unified XM in real-world business environments. This unique combination—decades of CX leadership, technical mastery in Qualtrics, organizational expertise, and forward-looking investment in advanced data platforms—gives our clients the confidence that Walker can deliver where others can’t.

The choice is clear: remain stuck in the old model—or trailblaze into a future where CX leaders aren’t just at the table, but at the center of business strategy.

We’re ready to partner with you on that journey. Are you ready to lead it?

In my next article, I’ll share how Walker’s brand has evolved to better reflect the future we’re building together and discuss how our intentional technology partnerships are helping us get there.