Customer experience (CX) developers, designers and marketers worldwide are planning more investment in technology and core initiatives while trimming reliance on outside service providers, according to Forrester’s report, Budget Planning Guide 2026: Customer Experience.
The report finds that CX executives are under pressure from weakening CX quality, volatile markets, and tighter internal resources. While AI-powered analytics tools are spreading, Forrester said most teams still struggle to turn customer data into actionable insights without significant manual work.
Forrester shares how businesses are approaching CX budgeting
Spending plans vary widely. CX budgets globally range from $20,000 to more than $5 million, with 21% of leaders reporting budgets between $1 million and $2.5 million, excluding salaries. Three quarters of businesses expect their CX budgets to at least keep pace with inflation, Forrester found. Leaders in India and the U.S. forecast the strongest gains, often in the 5%–10% range, while peers in Australia, France, Germany, and the UK anticipate more modest inflation-matching increases.
By category, more than one-third of CX executives plan to raise tech spending by 5% or more, with a similar share investing in CX-led initiatives. Investments in personnel, data and research, and outside providers will see slower growth. 15% of organizations expect to reduce spending on third-party service providers, which is the sharpest cut among budget categories.
Technology priorities are shifting toward foundational data infrastructure. One-third of CX leaders expect to increase spending on customer relationship management (CRM), digital intelligence, and business intelligence platforms. The same amount are planning to expand investment in customer data warehouses (31%) and feedback management tools (28%). With 61% of professionals already using it, customer relationship management (CRM) remains the most widely deployed tool in the CX technology stack.
Forrester also found that about one in three CX leaders intend to hire service providers for strategy, analytics, and customer service. By contrast, far fewer plan to outsource persona development, journey mapping, or journey management — areas increasingly handled in-house.
“CX leaders must build AI-ready functions and focus the entire ecosystem on customer outcomes while cutting entrenched, wasteful spending,” the report concludes.
Sign up
Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and YouTube.
Favorite