Something remarkable has been unfolding in the Arabian Peninsula for quite some time now. It is not one of oil booms or towering real-estate projects but a host of citizen-centric initiatives laying the foundation for smart and sustainable living across the region.
While initiatives like Smart Dubai are using technology to facilitate smarter traffic management or faster government services, various landmark investments under Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 are reshaping urban living, education and social infrastructure. Over in the UAE, the Digital Government Strategy is redefining convenience by rolling out seamless digital services that put people’s and business’s needs first.
Having recently observed a few conferences in the region, I’ve witnessed the palpable excitement around these initiatives among business leaders and investors alike. This has got me thinking: What does this enthusiasm imply for brands and businesses in the Middle East?
Well, the answer that first comes to my mind is that the definitions and limitations of ‘CX’ are changing at the speed of light. Where governments are taking the lead in defining what exceptional customer experience looks like, the message is clear: CX isn’t just a business priority, it’s a regional movement.
For brands, this presents a powerful opportunity but only for those willing to adopt a holistic approach to customer experience research.
Today’s customers expect frictionless experiences. They’re discerning, and they know what makes up good customer service. Meeting those expectations means weaving CX into the fabric of your business strategy not as an afterthought, but as a core driver of growth. To do so, brands must first be able to effectively measure and manage their customer experience, something we at Borderless Access are continuously helping clients achieve.
Joining the Tech-Powered CX Revolution
There have been a plenty of attention-grabbing headlines in the recent past that convey how hyper-personalization is redefining customer engagement, giving businesses the ability to predict what consumers want before they ask. Adding on to this is a wide array of omnichannel platforms bridging digital and physical worlds to create seamless experiences. With mobile adoption soaring, businesses are also embracing mobile-first strategies to keep pace with customer expectations.
Brands must also keep in mind that their customer experience strategy should reflect cultural values, regional preferences, and social norms. Understanding how trust, family values, and traditions shape consumer behavior is critical. Equally important is ensuring reliability and transparency which are cornerstones of brand loyalty in the region. Businesses must also embrace the region’s linguistic diversity to connect authentically with their audiences.
Meeting these demands requires more than simply tracking customer satisfaction or measuring Net Promoter Scores (NPS). Relying on a single metric like NPS or C-SAT only tells part of the story. While these scores measure customer sentiment, they often miss crucial insights. For instance, a customer might be satisfied today but reconsider their options tomorrow if they see a stronger value proposition elsewhere. To truly understand CX, businesses must measure multiple dimensions of the customer journey. A customer journey which doesn’t only reflect the present experience but also anticipate what they are likely to do in near future.
Borderless Access’ CXi—its proprietary customer experience measurement framework –can be invaluable in this regard. Unlike traditional metrics, CXi takes a holistic view by combining four key indicators:
- Performance – How well a brand meets customer expectations.
- Advocacy – The likelihood that customers will recommend the brand.
- Reconsideration – Whether customers are considering switching to competitors.
- Competitive Advantage – How customers perceive the brand’s edge over competitors.
Integrating these metrics into a single index through advanced statistics, CXi delivers a deeper understanding of the customer experience. But CXi is more than just a number; it is an all-inclusive look at customer experience research that helps brands understand what happened (status), why it happened (drivers), and what they can do to improve (action forward).
Crucially, it explains why advocacy and customer experience scores may not always align, giving businesses the clarity they need to prioritize actions that improve long-term customer retention and growth.
Borderless Access: Driving Business Growth Through Customer Experience Insights
As a future-forward insights solution company, Borderless Access believes in combining advanced research techniques with actionable insights to help businesses build stronger customer relations, improve customer retention, and devise CX strategies that fuel sustainable growth. By segmenting customers based on loyalty drivers, CXi enables brands to refine their strategies and take precise, impactful actions.
One of our recent success stories best illustrates this claim. We partnered with a leading digital banking platform in the UAE facing stagnating customer growth despite positive NPS scores. While customers reported satisfaction, the bank struggled to expand its market share.
Implementing our customer experience measurement framework they discovered that their Performance score was high, and Advocacy score was moderate, which indicated the platform’s core services met expectations but needed improvement in building stronger customer loyalty. Interestingly, their Reconsideration scores showed a significant portion of users actively exploring other banking options while the Competitive Advantage insights indicated customers saw competitors as offering better mobile app features and personalized financial advice.
With this data, the bank prioritized improvements in personalized recommendations and revamped its mobile app interface to enhance user experience. Post-implementation, the CXi score improved significantly, with stronger advocacy and reduced customer churn.
Here’s the bottom line: Brands that fail to adapt will quickly find themselves in the rearview mirror. Today, customer experience research isn’t about chasing trends; it’s about mastering the art of knowing what’s working, what’s flopping, and what to fix next.
In a region where customer experience is now a national priority, brands that embrace smarter, multi-dimensional measurement frameworks like CXi will thrive, and the rewards will be lasting.
If you are among the ones looking to take their CX game to the next level, feel free to connect with me at ejaz.mirza@borderlessaccess.com
