a moment to pause

2025 went by faster than most of us expected. It was a year marked by flux, disruption, and constant adjustment, and there is little indication that 2026 will be any calmer. If anything, the pace and complexity of decision-making across customer experience are only increasing.

This point at the end of the year is not the right time to introduce another framework or push through another initiative. It is, however, the right time to pause and take stock. Not in the sense of a formal retrospective, but in a more honest assessment of what actually helped CX teams make progress and what quietly absorbed effort without leaving much behind.

what really moved the needle in 2025

Looking back, the biggest gains in customer experience did not come from the largest programmes or the most ambitious plans. They came from clarity.

When teams understood what mattered, where risk was emerging, and how priorities connected across functions, progress followed naturally. When that clarity was missing, even well-intentioned work struggled to compound. Activity increased, but impact didn’t always follow.

This was one of the defining patterns of the year.

alignment as an operating reality

One theme that surfaced repeatedly in 2025 was alignment. Not alignment as a slogan or a set of agreed objectives, but alignment as something teams could feel in day-to-day decisions.

Where support, customer success, product, and leadership were working from a shared understanding of customer health and risk, decisions became easier and outcomes more predictable. Where each function interpreted priorities differently, progress often reset rather than built.

Nothing was obviously broken in those cases. But momentum was fragile.

the shifting role of customer support

This is also where the role of customer support continued to evolve.

The strongest teams were no longer operating as “support” in the traditional sense. They were acting as part of the CX strategy layer. Customer interactions were being used to surface insight early, inform wider decision-making, and shape how the organisation responded to emerging risk.

In those environments, support was not downstream of strategy. It was one of the inputs shaping it.

That distinction matters.

earning the seat at the table

For CX leaders looking to earn and retain a seat at the table, this shift is critical. Influence does not come from asking for it. It comes from changing how your function shows up.

When CX teams can clearly articulate what customers are experiencing, where pressure is building, and what is likely to matter next, conversations move away from cost and efficiency. They move toward outcomes, trade-offs, and impact.

That is when CX becomes a strategic discussion rather than an operational one.

patterns across the year

Many of the topics explored throughout the year pointed back to this same underlying dynamic.

Resource planning during constrained periods was really about decision-making under pressure. Year-end reporting exposed the gap between what organisations measure and what leaders actually use. Escalations, reactive support, critical customers, and early risk detection all came back to a single question:

Do teams have the visibility and alignment they need to act with confidence?

the takeaway heading into 2026

The most important lesson from 2025 is that progress rarely came from doing more. It came from seeing more clearly.

Alignment around the right signals, shared understanding across teams, and operating rhythms that held even as demand shifted all mattered more than new initiatives or bigger plans.

As 2026 approaches, the focus should not be on adding complexity for its own sake. It should be on reducing blind spots, strengthening alignment, and positioning customer experience as a strategic capability rather than a reactive function.

a final stocktake

Before the new year fills up with plans and priorities, it’s worth taking an honest stocktake.

What genuinely helped you move forward in 2025?
Where did alignment make decisions easier?
And where did a lack of clarity slow you down?

Those answers are a far stronger foundation for 2026 than any planning deck.

reflection

a cx leader’s end-of-year stocktake