Many across the CX space face a growing list of challenges right now. Whether that's due to global economic shocks, the growing role of AI, or shifting customer behaviors, it isn't an easy time to be the customer champion.
When CX Network conducted its annual research into the state of CX for 2026, practitioners in the network were asked select three challenges they currently face in their role from a list of more than 20 choices.
Here are their five most selected responses:
The 2026 results are almost identical to the 2025 results: competing priorities, building a customer-first culture, aligning business objectives with CX initiatives, and creating actionable insights from data all remain top of mind.
The fifth response is the only change year-on-year. In 2025 this was linking CX initiatives to ROI, which in 2026 dropped one place to be replaced by a new entry: the consumer demand for data security.
This article reveals how to tackle these leading challenges and ensure CX continues to thrive despite the barriers to progress that currently exist.
Challenge 1: Competing priorities
Since 2022, competing priorities has consistently topped the list of challenges facing practitioners in their work. In 2026, it was selected as a top challenge by 23 percent of respondents.
Ekaterina Mamonova, global head of broker proposition for Liberty Specialty Markets and a CX Network Advisory Board member, says competing business priorities have become one of the most persistent barriers for senior CX leaders, not because organizations undervalue CX, but because – sitting at the crossroads of strategy, culture, and commercial performance – it is expected to "drive a human‑centered vision in environments where priorities often compete rather than align".
She explains: "CX is, by design, a long‑term, relationship‑driven discipline. Yet it must operate within environments that frequently reward short‑term financial performance, fast operational outputs, and siloed departmental objectives. This tension creates a persistent push‑and‑pull that CX leaders must navigate.
As Mamonova sees it, one of the "most fundamental challenges" is the imbalance between long‑term value creation and quarterly expectations. "CX requires sustained investment in people, processes, and technology – investments that may not show immediate financial return. When cost‑reduction or efficiency targets take precedence, CX programs are often viewed as discretionary, leaving initiatives such as employee training, journey redesign, or new platforms vulnerable to budget cuts. As a result, CX leaders find themselves advocating for transformation that competes with short-term commercial imperatives".
This challenge doesn't exist in isolation. She says it is compounded by organization silos and conflicting KPIs, which see different teams optimize experiences for different outcomes – whether that's speed, acquisition, volume, or risk reduction – while CX seeks to improve the total journey. "Misaligned incentives can unknowingly undermine customer value; improving one metric in isolation often degrades the end‑to‑end experience." Operational constraints – such as fragmented data, legacy systems, and slow implementation cycles – further intensify the issue.
Finally, the human element is "frequently overlooked", Mamonova says. "When employee experience is deprioritized in favor of efficiency, customer experience inevitably suffers. Yet proving the ROI of empathy, empowerment and culture remains a challenge, making it harder for CX leaders to secure long-term support," she adds.
Challenge 2: Building a customer-first culture
At a time when profits are squeezed and efficiencies sough, focus on the customer can often slip. And for 22 percent of practitioners this is a challenge.
There are many reasons why this is the case.
Some organizations are product, rather than customer-first. To make the switch Amory Somers Vine, director of CX for Expereo, says the first step must be a "conscious decision, wholeheartedly backed by senior leadership, to put customers first".
"At Expereo we have a mantra to 'love the customers we have, and wow those we want to win' but a tagline isn't enough," she explains. "It's imperative that customer requirements, customer perspectives, validation and feedback form part of the core decision making processes in the company. Executive sponsorship of customer relationships, regular reviews of customer feedback, and customer impact assessments are good tactics."
Another key factor is ensuring that product teams have easy access to customers to learn, share, shape, and co-create products.
At Expereo a customer user group, expereoOne, meets quarterly to collaborate on platform developments. Somers Vine says the community has become an invaluable resource for product and development teams to enhance their understanding of customer requirements and provide a forum to test and validate concepts, prototypes, and MVPs.
"For our customers, it provides a valued peer network, gives them the opportunity to shape their service experience, and early access to the latest features and functionality," she tells CX Network.
Over at Align Technology, the company behind Invisalign, the goal is customer obsession, which has called for a rethink of how the company listens, leads, and acts on customer feedback.
Writing for CX Network, senior director of regional CX and continuous improvement Jody Carter, says: "In today's competitive landscape, "good" isn't good enough. Companies that truly commit to customer obsession, who listen actively, act boldly, and lead with empathy are not only raising the bar for customer experience but creating meaningful value for their customers and their business."
Challenge 3: Aligning business objectives with CX initiatives
The ability to align what the business wants to achieve with what CX is doing is critical to driving results that will be recognized – and appreciated – by C-suite leaders.
In this article for CX Network, Annette Franz advises five key actions:
- Build and communicate the business case
- Gather and socialize customer feedback and insights
- Identify and share quick wins
- Engage stakeholders who "get it"
- Align with business goals
"Customer experience leaders must ensure that CX initiatives align with business goals and outcomes. This will demonstrate the strategic value of CX and make it more likely to receive executive support," she adds.
Speaking to CX Network, Jeannie Walters, founder of Experience Investigators, says:
"Start by reframing CX as a business discipline, not a program. That means defining success in terms of both customer outcomes and business outcomes. We have to define CX leadership as much more than just improving a score; it's about driving retention, growth, efficiency, or risk reduction."
Yvette Mihelic, director of customer experience rail and transport John Holland Group and a CX Network Advisory Board member says practitioners should "educate, advise and demonstrate the interconnectivity of CX with overall organizational performance".
To do this, practitioners can align CX initiatives with metrics that resonate with broader business goals, such as customer retention or revenue growth to ensure CX is seen not as a siloed function but as a driver of business success. She also says they can leverage customer data to support business cases, but herein lies another challenge…
Challenge 4: Creating actionable insights from data
The ability to create actionable insights from data continues to plague CX. Whether that is because the data is incomplete or siloed, or the tools used for the job are not up to speed differs between organizations. In other cases, the insights are clear, but the next best actions to take are the barrier. What can be agreed upon, is that measurement is rarely the problem.
Walters says: "Many organizations invest heavily in measurement. They have dashboards, journey maps, and feedback loops. But those tools don't automatically translate into action.
"The plateau happens when CX becomes something that's reported on rather than acted on. Leaders review the data, but the organization hasn't built the habits, incentives, or accountability to consistently improve experiences. In other words, they've built awareness, but not discipline. That is simply unsustainable," Walters adds.
Challenge 5: Consumer demand for data security
Elsewhere in the top challenges, consumer demand for data security emerged as the fifth most significant challenge facing practitioners this year. Sue Duris, principal consultant at M4 Communications, says the result is "telling about where customer trust actually stands".
She says several factors are driving the demand for data security:
· Escalating threats, data breaches, and identity theft have become pervasive
· Cybercrime is growing more sophisticated, particularly with AI enabling smarter attacks.
"Customers aren't just concerned their data is safe – they want assurance it is being used ethically and legally," she explains. Compounding these factors, Duris says there is regulatory complexity and gaps, despite the standards set by GDPR and CCPA, and that most other regions lack explicit protections. "Even where regulations exist, most customers don't understand their data rights, or what's available to them," she adds.
Despite – or perhaps because of – these challenges, data security is rapidly becoming a competitive differentiator. Customers will switch brands for better peace of mind—knowing their data is safe and being used appropriately.
Speaking to CX Network, Assaf Keren, chief security officer for Qualtrics and former CISO for PayPal, says there is a trust gap and that Qualtrics' own research has found that 53 percent of consumers say misuse of personal data is their top concern, particularly when companies use AI to automate interactions.
To close the trust gap, he says practitioners should focus on three things:
- Data integrity needs to be treated as a core company KPI. "Not something audited at deployment and forgotten about, but monitored continuously," Keren says. "If the data feeding your AI is corrupted or manipulated, the outputs will be too, and those outputs land directly in front of customers."
- Transparency matters too. "Consumers have told us they'd share more data if organizations were more open about how it's used. That's a communication and governance challenge. Clear policies, plain language explanations and genuine accountability go a long way," he explains.
- Organizations also need to get ahead of the regulatory curve. Echoing the concerns set out by Duris, Keren says: "Data protection requirements are already complex, and with frameworks like the EU AI Act coming into force, AI-specific compliance is another layer that can't be an afterthought."
Quick links
- The top 10 challenges facing CX practitioners in 2025
- Top 5 challenges facing CX practitioners - and how to overcome them
- 5 CX challenges facing practitioners in APAC - and what they're doing to overcome them