The Customer Experience (CX) function is relatively new compared to areas like Sales, Product, Marketing, or Quality. It began to emerge as a standalone role in the early 2000s, with significant growth starting around 2005. This rise reflects a growing awareness that customer loyalty, satisfaction, and advocacy are central to business success.
Between 2005 and 2020, mid-sized and large companies progressively built dedicated teams around Customer Experience. These CX teams grew in response to several key shifts:
- The rise of digital interactions and online channels
- Increasing customer expectations driven by digital transformation
- Heightened competition, pushing companies to differentiate through experience
In this article, we’ll explore the role of CX teams, their impact on the organization, and the main challenges they will face in 2025.
A quick note to facilitate understanding of this guide: CX means Customer Experience, VoC means Voice-of-Customer, and Journey is about Customer Journey Mapping not your next holidays’ itinerary.
The Customer Experience Job
Why Does it Matter More Than Ever?
The point here is not to outline 50 different statistics about why it’s a cornerstone in the organization and a super exiting jobs with real impact. We will just focus on 4 facts:
First, Customer Experience is about connecting the company mission to business success, and always putting the customer at the center of every single decision.
Second, CX is now a top strategic priority for businesses. In a recent survey of 1,920 business professionals, nearly half (45.9%) ranked customer experience as the number one priority for the next 5 years, beating out product and pricing strategy.
Third, our world is changing faster than ever, every business has to transform and become more agile. It’s a matter of life or death (for the business). CX teams play a key role in accelerating transformation and inner feedback loop in large organizations.
Last but not least, for the CX function to perform, it has to be a horizontal layer in the organization. Therefore, breaking silos and facilitating multi-teams initiatives with technology.
The Main Difference with the Customer Support Function
Before starting diving into the Customer Experience role, it’s important to start with addressing a common misconception : Customer Experience is not Customer Support.
Most Customer Support teams, tools, systems have been rebranded Customer Experience in recent years. Their job is to provide the best Customer Experience when a customer reach out through the different support channels. However, Customer Support is a part of Customer Experience. Customer Experience teams and systems handle the full customer journey, from the start of the relationship (e.g. customer enters the website or store) to the very end.
Obviously, both functions are correlated, and it’s impossible to provide great CX without a great Customer Support function.
The 3 Main CX Roles
Customer Experience, being a relatively new function in the organization, there are a lot of different job titles for a similar scope of responsibilities. Here is a summary of the 3 main functions:
Head of CX / VP of Customer Experience. (note: If this is your job, you probably don’t need to read this article!). This is the boss in charge of the overall CX team and overall Customer Experience across all journeys. Some organizations will have specific head of CX based on the different business lines (e.g. Head of CX B2B, Head of CX B2C, Head of CX EMEA, etc.). Key responsibilities include:
- Aligns customer experience goals with the company’s business objectives and has the authority to drive cross-department initiatives
- Oversees the entire CX team and ensures that customer-centric thinking is embedded in high-level decision-making
- Reports directly to the CEO.
CX Manager / VoC Manager / CX Lead. A manager who coordinates the day-to-day execution of CX initiatives and programs. They are the ones in the ground in direct contact with other departments and ensure Voice-of-Customer insights are leveraged as best as possible. They might run governance routines, manage the CX project portfolio, and ensure various CX improvement efforts. This is the most common CX role in organizations of smaller sizes (< 10,000 employees). Key responsibilities include:
- Lead the different CX programs with operational teams.
- Aligns with Data teams to unlock key insights based on operational data.
- Report key CX metrics to the Head of CX.
CX Analyst / VoC Analyst. These team members focus on listening to customers and gleaning insights. They design and manage feedback mechanisms such as surveys (NPS, CSAT, CES), customer interviews, focus groups, online reviews or customer advisory boards. Then, they analyze the data for actionable findings. Key responsibilities include:
- Finds insights in the Customer Experience.
- Dispatch insights to operational teams.
- Explore incoherence or low signals detected by VoC systems.
The above list could be a lot more complex based on the organization’s size and structure. Also, we are focusing only on CX functions, but other functions are very connected to CX: UX, Customer Success Manager, Customer Intelligence, Customer Support, etc.
How to Get a Job into CX?
The good news with the CX function is that no one needs a specific sets of diplomas or certifications to get into the field. CX teams members often have previous experience in Customer Support, Marketing or Operations.
However, there are a set of skills, that even though they can be learnt have to be of interest:
| Skill | Description for CX | Importance | Experiences |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-Centric Mindset | Every CX team member must deeply care about customers and be humble. The worst CX mindset would be “We are perfect, and we can’t learn from our customers”. A genuine empathy for customer needs, pain points, and emotions is the cornerstone of effective CX work. | 5/5 | Ability to detect irritants in customer journeys Ability to story tell an individual customer experience |
| Communication and Collaboration | CX is inherently cross-functional, so strong communication skills are essential. CX professionals need to convey insights and ideas clearly to other departments and also be active listeners (both to customers and colleagues). | 5/5 | Presentation skillsAbility to create action plans |
| Analytical Skills and Data Interpretation | Modern CX management is highly data-driven. While not every CX team member needs to be a data scientist, the team collectively must be comfortable analyzing customer data and extracting insights. Basic data analysis and interpretation skills enable the team to pinpoint trends. | 4/5 | Ability to detect trends in dataset Ability to calculate ROI Ability to perform Root-cause analysis |
| Problem-Solving and Creativity | Delivering great customer experiences often requires creative problem-solving. So, CX teams frequently encounter unexpected customer pain points or process breakdowns and must think of innovative solutions. | 3/5 | Previous experience with design thinking Ability to create action plans |
| Adaptability | The customer landscape can change quickly (as the past few years have shown with pandemic-related shifts, for example). Therefore, CX teams need to be agile and adaptable to changing customer preferences, market conditions, and technologies. | 3/5 | Ability to conduct RFP and implement new toolsAbility to convince leadership and other departments. |
| Change Management and Leadership | Finally, driving CX excellence in a large enterprise is as much about organizational change as it is about customer change. | 3/5 | Previous business transformation experienceTraining/Coaching abilities |
A Day in the Life of a CX Manager
Let’s get into concrete daily action. A regular 8 hours job in the shoes of a CX manager might look like the following:
Reviewing customer feedback and insights (~ 1hr)
Leveraging technology and AI to identify key customer feedbacks and pain points on a daily basis. This also includes setting priorities and focusing on specific customer touchpoints. The CX Manager looks for emerging patterns (e.g., a spike in complaints about a specific product feature) or indicators of brand sentiment.
Cross-Functional sync with other teams (~ 2/4hrs)
A big part of the day is about synchronizing with other teams on different CX initiatives. Providing key insights and reliable intelligence to adjacent teams (marketing, customer support, product, etc.). These usually happen through workshops or meetings.
Executive touchpoints (~ 30 min)
A part of the job is keeping the executive team aware and up to date with the CX level, challenges and key actions in progress. This includes ROI frameworks, budgets and KPI communication.
Deep dive (and resolving) customer pain points (~ 1/2 hrs)
A first part is about understanding the problem. For example, the CX Manager and the VoC Analyst tackle the latest NPS wave or post-purchase survey results. They slice data by customer segment, region, or product line. They dig into comments to understand the “why” behind high or low scores.
A second part is about fixing the problem. For example, the manager starts drafting a summary report of findings: highlighting top drivers of satisfaction/dissatisfaction, recommending next steps, and noting any urgent red flags. This report will be shared with leadership and relevant teams tomorrow, so clarity and actionable insights are paramount.
Data/IT touchpoints (~ 30 min)
In large enterprises, the CX Manager must stay close to IT/Operations teams. They discuss progress on system integrations (such as CRM or data warehouse), ensure the systems are accurately capturing feedback, and identify any data silos to tackle. It’s extremely manual to do CX work without the right data integration. Therefore, data quality and reliability is paramount to the CX’s impact.
Admin and follow ups (~ 1 hr)
The manager follows up on items from the morning workshop or new issues that popped up throughout the day. CX effectiveness is also about keepingtract of every action plans, report and making sure every Customer Experience committees are prepared on time.
The Key Challenges in 2025 for CX Roles
Breaking Silos in the Organization
In the dynamic landscape of 2025, CX managers are at the forefront of navigating complex organizational structures. One of the most pressing challenges is the presence of silos, distinct divisions within an organization that operate independently, often leading to fragmented customer experiences. A study highlights that 43% of CX leaders identify limited cross-department collaboration as their top challenge, surpassing even budget constraints.
These silos manifest in various ways:
- Sales teams utilize CRM systems like Salesforce or HubSpot, capturing valuable customer interactions that may not be accessible to other departments.
- Quality assurance teams employ specialized tools to monitor product performance and customer complaints, with insights often confined within the department.
- User research teams accumulate extensive qualitative data through interviews and usability tests, which may remain siloed and underutilized across the organization.
- Customer support teams gather feedback through post-interaction surveys and support tickets, yet this data might not be systematically shared with product development or marketing teams.
For CX managers, the imperative is clear: bridge these divides to create a unified, customer-centric approach. Achieving this requires:
- Implementing centralized platforms that aggregate data from various departments, providing a holistic view of customer interactions.
- Establishing cross-functional governance to ensure that customer insights are shared and acted upon collaboratively.
- Securing executive alignment to prioritize customer experience as a shared organizational goal.
Connecting with Business Results
Today, collecting feedback is no longer enough. To create real business impact, CX managers must connect feedback to three essential referentials: customer, product, and physical.
The customer referential helps identify who is impacted: customer segment, preferences, age, customer type. Without this link, feedback stays anonymous. By tying insights to customer profiles, CX teams can prioritize improvements where they matter most, like focusing on issues raised by strategic segments or high-value customers.
The product referential adds the what: typology, category, version. It’s not enough to know customers are unhappy, you need to know about which product or service. For example, spotting that a majority of negative feedback comes from an old product version can guide your action plans and resource allocation.
The physical referential shows the where: business unit, region, store, or delivery point. If a satisfaction drop is concentrated in a specific region or at certain delivery hubs, you can target operational fixes precisely instead of launching generic programs.
In many companies, all this information already exists, but lives in separate systems. The real job of the CX manager is to connect feedback to these three business dimensions systematically. When you know who, what, and where, you stop reacting to noise and start driving decisions that reduce churn, boost loyalty, and improve profitability.
Leading companies are not just “listening” to customers, they are mapping feedback to action using customer, product, and physical referentials every day. That’s the shift turning CX from a support function into a key business accelerator.
Leveraging new technology
In 2025, the conversation around new technology in CX boils down to one word: AI.
For CX managers, AI is no longer a buzzword, it’s a real operational shift. When used correctly, AI can cut up to 90% of manual work across feedback analysis, action planning, and reporting.
The opportunity is simple: less time processing data, more time acting on it.
Three concrete applications of AI are already transforming how CX managers operate:
- First, Text and Sentiment Analysis.
Instead of manually reading thousands of customer comments, AI automatically analyzes feedback, detects emerging themes, scores satisfaction trends, and even identifies weak signals early. A feedback dataset that once took weeks to process can now be explored in hours, giving CX managers faster insights and sharper priorities. - Second, AI-Generated Action Plans.
Today, it’s possible to automatically translate customer feedback into concrete improvement initiatives. Based on detected pain points, AI suggests action plans assigned to the right teams: product, operations, support, etc. CX managers become orchestrators, validating and refining solutions instead of spending endless cycles organizing them manually. - Third, Automated VoC Reporting.
AI can now generate ready-to-share Voice-of-Customer reports customized for each stakeholder: an executive summary for leadership, detailed breakdowns for operations, or specific pain points for product teams. These reports are not static, they update live as new feedback flows in, ensuring CX managers always have fresh, relevant insights at hand without spending hours formatting slides or dashboards.
The real shift is here: AI doesn’t replace the CX manager, it amplifies their role.
It removes the repetitive, manual barriers between customer signals and business action.
By leveraging AI smartly, CX managers move faster, act sooner, and spend their energy where it matters most: designing better experiences and driving measurable results.
Rising Customer Expectations
In 2025, seamless, fast, and personalized experiences are no longer a competitive edge, they’re simply expected. Customers won’t tolerate friction: over 52% will switch to a competitor after just one bad interaction, and 91% read at least one online review before making a purchase decision. A single weak point can instantly damage trust and drive churn.
For CX managers, the takeaway is clear: every pain point matters.
To meet these expectations, teams need to continuously detect friction across the customer journey, whether it’s a delay in onboarding, a billing mistake, a confusing return process, or a cold chatbot. Nothing should be left to assumption. Feedback must flow constantly from VoC programs, operational data, and frontline teams.
But detection alone isn’t enough. Every issue must be measured and prioritized. It’s not just about knowing what’s wrong, but understanding how many customers are affected, which segments are at risk, and what the business impact could be. Not every issue weighs the same, but every issue needs a weight.
What really drives impact is action. Each pain point must lead to a clear initiative: a fix, a redesign, a change in process or training. Dashboards don’t improve experience decisions do. The best CX teams operate in fast, continuous loops: detect, size, act, repeat.
Great companies aren’t perfect. They’re just faster at spotting issues and fixing them.
In a world where patience is thin and alternatives are everywhere, building this discipline is the only way to stay ahead.
Every pain point is a signal. Every signal deserves a response.
This is no longer about optimization, it’s the foundation of modern loyalty.
Privacy, Security, and Trust Concerns
Managing customer experience today inevitably means managing customer data and doing it right.
The explosion of feedback sources, as highlighted during Feedier’s All4Customer conference, shows that companies now handle insights from more than 8 different channels and 4 internal systems on average. This massive flow of customer information makes CX management increasingly exposed to compliance and security risks.
At the same time, global regulations have reshaped the playing field. GDPR, CCPA, ISO 27001:2022, and SOC II now set the baseline for how customer data must be treated. CX managers are no longer distant from these concerns, every feedback survey, NPS campaign, and VoC initiative must respect strict data protection rules. A single misstep can expose a company to penalties up to 20 million euros under GDPR, and cause long-term trust damage.
In this new environment, CX managers must integrate data protection into their daily operations. This requires:
- Being trained on the basics of GDPR, CCPA, ISO 27001, and SOC II to recognize risks early.
- Designing feedback collection processes that guarantee consent, transparency, and security by default.
- Collaborating closely with Legal, Compliance, and IT teams to ensure every CX project is aligned with regulatory and security frameworks.
Protecting privacy is no longer a constraint, it’s part of what customers expect when they share their experiences. CX managers who embrace this responsibility are not just complying with the law; they are strengthening the very trust their organizations rely on to grow.
Feedier: The AI Platform for CX teams
The Feedier Platform is designed specifically to empower CX teams in mid-size and large organizations. Our technology is designed to facilitate the full process with secure AI: from centralizing feedback sources, generating tailored action plans, to creating beautiful Voice-of-Customer reports for operational teams.
Want to learn more? Book a demo with our team.
