Customer experience (CX) has become the defining battleground for financial services. With 89% of companies now competing primarily on CX—up from just 36% in 2010—banks are under unprecedented pressure to deliver experiences that not only meet but exceed rising customer expectations. This shift is driven by the digital transformation of the industry, the proliferation of fintech challengers, and the influence of digital leaders in other sectors, which have collectively raised the bar for what customers expect from their financial providers.
Yet, despite significant investment—often a quarter or more of total budgets—many banks struggle to translate CX spending into measurable business growth. Traditional metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) offer a high-level view but fall short in providing actionable insights on where to invest for maximum impact. Recognizing this gap, Publicis Sapient has developed the Customer Experience Growth Index (CXGX): a new, data-driven framework designed to link customer experience directly to business growth and help banks prioritize their CX investments with precision.
The CXGX is a proprietary measurement tool that moves beyond the limitations of NPS by offering a nuanced, actionable, and touchpoint-specific view of customer experience. At its core, the CXGX is built on the “Three Es” framework:
For every interaction a customer has with their bank—across 11 key touchpoints such as mobile app, desktop website, live chat, call center, branch, and more—the CXGX captures responses to these three questions. This approach provides a granular, channel-specific view of CX, allowing banks to compare performance across channels and identify the moments that truly matter to customers.
While NPS remains popular for its simplicity and benchmarking capability, it lacks the granularity needed to guide investment decisions. CX leaders in financial services increasingly recognize this limitation, noting that NPS is not nuanced enough to capture the complexity of modern customer journeys or to pinpoint which investments will drive meaningful improvements.
The CXGX addresses these shortcomings by:
The CXGX’s Three Es framework is grounded in behavioral science, drawing on insights from Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman’s research shows that customers don’t just remember what happened—they remember how it made them feel. Most interactions fall into the “Valley of Meh”—neither especially good nor bad, and quickly forgotten. The experiences that drive loyalty and growth are those that stand out, either positively or negatively, and are remembered.
By capturing not just what happened, but how it compared to expectations and how it made customers feel, the CXGX identifies the moments that shape brand perception and future behavior. This enables banks to focus their efforts on the touchpoints and experiences that have the greatest potential to drive growth.
Publicis Sapient’s research using the CXGX framework reveals a strong correlation between a bank’s CXGX score and its business performance. Banks with higher CXGX scores see:
For example, neobanks with the highest CXGX scores have achieved the largest net increases in customer accounts, while traditional banks with lower scores have seen customer losses. A scatter plot of CXGX scores against net customer growth shows a clear upward trend, with an R² value of 0.648—demonstrating that improvements in CX, as measured by the CXGX, are closely linked to business growth.
One of the CXGX’s most powerful features is its ability to break down CX performance by touchpoint. For each bank, the framework creates a “CX value chain” that combines the CX score for each channel with data on how many customers use it. This reveals:
For instance, mobile apps often score highest in customer satisfaction, but desktop websites may lag behind. By migrating even a small percentage of users from lower-performing channels to higher-performing ones, banks can significantly boost their overall CXGX score—and, by extension, their growth potential.
Live chat is another example: it typically achieves higher CX scores than call centers and offers lower operating costs. However, adoption rates vary widely. Banks that successfully encourage more customers to use high-performing live chat services can improve both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
Consider a top-tier bank whose mobile app is its highest-performing channel, but whose desktop website lags behind. By migrating just 5% of desktop website users to the mobile app, the bank could increase its overall CXGX score from 8.6 to 8.9. Similarly, shifting 5% of call center users to live chat—where the CX score is significantly higher—would further boost the bank’s CXGX and reduce costs.
This data-driven approach allows banks to:
The CXGX also provides a detailed view of the emotions associated with each touchpoint. For example, while both call centers and live chat can make customers feel “cared for,” call centers are more likely to leave customers feeling angry or disappointed, whereas live chat users are more likely to feel frustrated or alienated if the experience falls short. These insights help banks design interventions that not only improve functional outcomes but also foster positive emotional connections.
The CXGX is currently in beta, with ongoing pilots across leading financial services brands. Banks interested in adopting the framework can start by:
The CXGX represents a step-change in how banks can measure, understand, and act on customer experience data. By linking CX directly to business growth and providing actionable, touchpoint-level insights, the framework empowers banks to move beyond generic metrics and make smarter, more targeted investments.
As the dataset grows and the methodology evolves, the CXGX will enable even more robust benchmarking, predictive analytics, and ROI measurement—helping banks close the gap between what they believe they deliver and what customers actually experience.
Ready to transform your approach to CX measurement and investment? Contact Publicis Sapient to learn how the CX Growth Index can help your bank unlock new growth through customer experience excellence.
For more information on piloting the CXGX or to book a workshop with our financial services experts, visit publicissapient.com/fs.
Publicis Sapient is a global digital business transformation partner, helping financial services organizations create and sustain competitive advantage in a rapidly changing world. Our SPEED capabilities—Strategy, Product, Experience, Engineering, and Data—combined with deep industry expertise, enable us to deliver meaningful impact for our clients and their customers.