Editorial
Research Report
The 2026 State of CX Outsourcing
The Gist
- Experience excellence is trained, not declared. Like Olympic athletes, high-performing CX organizations commit to daily discipline, cultural alignment and relentless preparation behind the scenes.
- Coaching, metrics and teamwork separate contenders from champions. Executive sponsorship, cross-functional collaboration and clearly defined KPIs turn ambition into measurable business impact.
- Resilience and reinvention sustain the podium. Customer expectations never stand still — and neither can experience leaders who want to maintain competitive advantage.
This month, the eyes of the world have been on Italy for the Winter Games in Milan Cortino. Audiences have been captivated by the heart, passion, endurance and resilience of young athletes from around the world as they compete for the chance to medal. These Olympians do not just show up on a global stage and hope things work out. They train relentlessly, rely on expert coaching, lean on their teammates, recover from injuries and setbacks and compete within cultures that demand high performance.
Their excellence is not accidental. It's intentional and hard-earned.
Building and activating a customer experience strategy demands the same unseen dedication. Organizations striving to deliver exceptional customer experience are in many ways training for their own Olympic moments. And just like Olympic success, the difference between medaling and going home empty-handed often comes down to what's happening behind the scenes.
Table of Contents
- The Training Never Stops
- Coaching Makes Champions
- Metrics Drive Performance
- The Competition Never Sleeps
- Mental Toughness Wins Medals … and Drives Change
- The Podium Is Just the Beginning
- Experiencing Greatness — in Olympics and Customer Experience
The Training Never Stops
Olympic Figure Skaters don't wait until they are at the games to start practicing their jumps and spins. The skiers and hockey players work for years on conditioning and learning how to brave the elements. They invest the time perfecting fundamentals and building muscle memory, so they are prepared to meet the moment when it arrives.
And talk about meeting the moment this week. Check out Megan Keller's game-winning goal in overtime to lift the US to a 2-1 win over Canada in the women's ice hockey gold medal game:
Similarly, exceptional experience isn't created in a workshop or launched with a single initiative. It requires constant attention and evolution. Every employee interaction, every process refinement, every data point analyzed is part of the training regimen.
Companies that treat CX as a one-time project are like athletes who only train during Olympic years; they simply can't compete with those who've made it a daily discipline. Just like the athletes, the experience pros at the top of their games are committing to a program and putting in the work:
- They enable CX- and EX-centric cultures. Olympians are typically athletes who have come up in an environment that has nurtured and encouraged their pursuits. In the same way, a culture of experience-centricity in an organization will include leaders who walk the walk and talk the talk, provide the tools and training to set the teams up for success and have a vision of what they are trying to achieve.
- They reassess what is needed. As athletes mature, they often have to reset and recommit. They are always scanning the competitive environment, not obsessing over it, and they test and learn with new tools and techniques to hone their craft. Same rules apply for experience pros. They need to be keyed into and learning from the up-and-comers and while also maintaining a firm grasp on the technological advances and innovations that will allow for scale and growth.
- They know that the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Individual achievements and accolades are wonderful validations for the hard work and sacrifice, but, as Olympians, the success of the collective is equally important. Great leaders cannot do this work alone. They need skilled teams around them executing, challenging and activating the learning.
Case in point: The 1980 US men's hockey team, which stunned the dominant Soviet Union with a 4-3 victory in the Olympic semifinal. Team effort? How about a ragtag bunch of amateur hockey players from the Midwest and New England beating a Soviet team that had won four straight Olympic gold medals.
Related Article: The Ultimate Blueprint for High-Performing Customer Experience Teams
Coaching Makes Champions
No athlete reaches the podium alone, no matter how talented they are. Behind every Olympic medalist is a team of coaches, nutritionists, sports psychologists, and trainers. Experience transformation requires the same collaborative approach and broad, varied system of support.
- Executive sponsors who act as head coaches, setting vision and removing obstacles.
- Cross-functional teams who train together, breaking down silos between marketing, sales, operations and service…among others.
- Specialists who have expertise in customer journey mapping, analytics, design thinking and change management.
When it comes to Olympic level talent, the complexity of the ecosystem requires a unique combination of extraordinarily skilled and committed experts working for the good of the athlete. The coordination and integration of these varied areas of expertise is centered on the singular goal of helping that athlete perform at the highest level.
In the same way, organizations that rally around key experience journeys — be it customer, employee or change — will have a much surer path to achieving their organizational goals. A team approach and a shared commitment to success is not a nice-to-have. It's non-negotiable.
Metrics Drive Performance
Olympic athletes are fortunate that the very vessels of their success, their bodies, come with trackable metrics. Heart rate variability. Power output. Strength. Endurance. Video analysis of form.
When it comes to experience, the metrics aren't always as straightforward or easy to track. A goal of "improving customer satisfaction" is akin to telling an athlete to "skate faster." It's not wrong, but it's also not helpful in measuring progress.
The experience programs operating at the highest level will identify those areas that are most aligned to organizational goals and then establish core KPIs to track improvement. Those can include anything from customer effort score to customer lifetime value to churn rate. Equally important is to track establish baseline performance, set ambitious targets and measure progress relentlessly.
More importantly, the most successful leaders connect these metrics to business outcomes. Olympic athletes know exactly how their training translates to performance. In the same way, elite leaders must demonstrate how experience improvements drive revenue growth, cost reduction and competitive advantage.
Related Article: Stop Debating CX Metrics and Start Fixing What's Broken
The Competition Never Sleeps
Speaking of competitive advantage, whether they like to admit it or not, elite athletes usually have an eye on their top opponents. And they are often inspired by them as well. Because the moment you stop looking for inspiration and new challenges is the moment someone sneaks past you on the podium (or the product launch).
When Olympians break world records, they compete with themselves but also with every other medal contender. The moment you stop improving is the moment someone passes you, so awareness is key.
Customer expectations are set by the best experience they've had anywhere, not just in your industry. When customers experience moments that delight them, they become their benchmark. Every interaction with your brand is implicitly compared to the gold standard they've experienced elsewhere.
Complacency is fatal in both athletics and customer experience. The moment you think your experience is "good enough" is the moment a competitor is working harder, investing more and innovating faster. Experience leaders maintain their position through relentless improvement and reinvention.
Mental Toughness Wins Medals … and Drives Change
Olympic athletes train their minds as intensively as their bodies. They visualize success, manage pressure and maintain focus when it matters most. They also make adjustments as they go, listening to data — and their instincts — and tweaking accordingly.
Activating a customer journey strategy requires similar mental toughness. There will be resistance to change. Budget constraints. Competing priorities. Technical challenges. Stakeholders who don't see the value. And that's probably just during your first week! The organizations (and leaders) that succeed are those with the resilience to push through obstacles, the patience to stay committed during implementation challenges and the conviction that work matters. They also know how to articulate and demonstrate the value they are delivering in ways that connect with their audience.
Experience transformation can feel like a cross-country ski event, demanding both endurance and the ability to move quickly when opportunities arise. Experience Leaders must maintain enthusiasm and commitment even when results aren't immediate or they're feeling like they're "over their skis."
Many initiatives fail because organizations try to do too much too fast. They launch sweeping changes across every channel and touchpoint simultaneously, overwhelming employees and confusing customers. Better to focus on high-impact improvements, implement them well, learn from the results and then expand, just as athletes ruthlessly prioritize honing one skill before adding complexity.
Olympic Traits vs. Customer Experience Excellence
How the discipline behind Olympic success mirrors the foundations of high-performing customer experience programs.
| Olympic Success Trait | What It Looks Like in Sport | Customer Experience Equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Relentless daily training | Years of conditioning, repetition and refinement before stepping onto the global stage. | Continuous CX optimization through journey reviews, process improvements, employee enablement and data analysis. |
| Elite coaching | Head coaches and specialists guiding performance, correcting weaknesses and setting strategy. | Executive sponsorship and CX leadership that sets vision, removes roadblocks and aligns teams to shared outcomes. |
| Team coordination | Athletes, trainers and support staff operating as a unified ecosystem focused on one goal. | Cross-functional collaboration across marketing, sales, operations and service to deliver seamless experiences. |
| Performance metrics | Tracking heart rate, speed, strength and form to drive measurable improvement. | Clear KPIs such as customer effort score, lifetime value, churn and revenue impact tied directly to business results. |
| Competitive awareness | Studying rivals, adapting techniques and pushing past world records. | Monitoring market leaders and rising disruptors while benchmarking against best-in-class experiences anywhere. |
| Mental toughness | Managing pressure, setbacks and expectations while staying focused on execution. | Driving change through resistance, budget constraints and organizational fatigue with resilience and clarity. |
| Progressive improvement | Refining one skill at a time before adding complexity. | Prioritizing high-impact journey improvements before scaling transformation across channels. |
| Podium mindset | Viewing a medal as validation — not the finish line. | Recognizing CX wins as momentum builders, continuously raising standards as expectations evolve. |
Webinar
Feb
25
Content Strategy Leaders Live: Scaling for Speed, Complexity and AI in High Tech
A candid roundtable on how high-tech leaders are rethinking content at scale.
Register
Webinar
Feb
26
Why Customer Insights Never Turn Into Action
The gap between insight and action is solvable...once you understand how scattered knowledge can wreak havoc on execution.
Register
Webinar
Feb
26
Do More with Less: Modernizing the Cloud Contact Center for 2026
Learn how to leverage cloud platforms without adding a single hire to personalize every customer interaction.
Register
Webinar
Mar
25
Content Leaders Collective: Navigating Content Decisions at Scale
Discover how content leaders are modernizing content operations, avoiding costly missteps and preparing for scale and AI.
Register
Webinar
Mar
26
Do Learning Programs Really Work? How to Turn Education Into Engagement In Healthcare
See how leaders are using learning programs to build trust with healthcare professionals and create measurable engagement.
Register
Webinar
On demand
Cut the Noise: Deploying AI That Actually Moves the Needle
Learn how to turn AI experimentation into concrete revenue operations.
Watch Now
The Podium Is Just the Beginning
For Olympic athletes, winning a medal isn't the end; while it's validation of their approach, it's often also motivation to defend their title or improve their performance. They study their results, identify what worked and what didn't and begin preparing for the next competition.
Similarly, experience and change success creates new opportunities and higher expectations. When you improve an experience, customers and employees notice. But they also expect you to maintain that standard while continuing to innovate. Improving experience is never "won." It's an ongoing commitment to meeting evolving needs and staying ahead of rising expectations.
Experiencing Greatness — in Olympics and Customer Experience
The Olympics are a wonderful reminder that true excellence requires dedication that only a few are willing to give. Most athletes never make it to the Olympics. Of those who do, fewer still reach the podium. But those who succeed share common traits: unwavering commitment to preparation, willingness to put in the work when no one is watching, resilience through setbacks and the discipline to keep improving.
Building a world-class experience demands the same athletic mindset:
- Commit to the daily training
- Invest in the right coaching and support systems
- Measure what matters
- Stay competitive
- Maintain mental toughness through challenges
- Balance intensity with capacity
- Recognize that each success is just preparation for the next challenge
Is your organization ready to take on the challenge of creating a Gold Medal experience strategy across your organization?
Learn how you can join our contributor community.