In today's hyper-connected world, success isn't just about creating great products or services—it's about crafting exceptional experiences that resonate deeply with people. Just as musicians transform raw emotions into powerful songs that move audiences, experience management leaders are turning complex data into meaningful insights that help organizations create long-lasting connections with their customers, employees, and stakeholders. The 2025 Qualtrics XM Breakthrough Artist Award recognizes those visionaries who, through their creative application of XM principles, are composing the future of business success—one experience at a time.
Experience Management: Fueling Incredible Growth With XM
ServiceNow’s commitment to customer-centric excellence is reflected in their industry-leading retention rates and impressive organic growth. By cultivating a robust experience management culture powered by the Qualtrics XM Platform, ServiceNow empowers over 10,000 employees across 180 teams to understand and enhance the moments that matter most to its customers, partners, and employees. Cross-departmental collaboration allows them to harness valuable insights and be proactive in continually improving the customer experience.
At ServiceNow, these powerful insights drive action and innovation at scale. For example, customer feedback is automatically routed to the relevant teams, resulting in 6,000 closed-loop actions annually and a remarkable 90% closed-loop rate—and this responsiveness not only fosters trust and satisfaction among customers but also leads to meaningful improvements and business outcomes. By leveraging real-time insights from over 24 survey programs, they continually refine the customer journey and enhance digital experiences through AI. At ServiceNow, experience management is an ongoing movement that fuels customer value, growth, and retention.
Customer Experience: Serving Up Guest Satisfaction – One Bit at a Time
KFC opens a new store every 3.5 hours on average, giving the company the widest global footprint of any quick service restaurant (QSR) brand. At the heart of this growth is KFC's experience management program. KFC has transformed the way it serves the billions of guests who engage with the brand, focusing on delivering consistent, high-quality experiences at scale.
By harnessing real-time insights, KFC empowers its teams across its 30K branches across more than 150 countries to seamlessly meet guest expectations. The integration of AI-powered analytics has driven operational excellence, enabling faster service and optimizing performance across various channels, allowing frontline teams to operate more efficiently. Additionally, KFC has unified customer feedback from digital, in-store, and delivery interactions, creating a comprehensive view of the customer experience that helps the brand continuously measure and enhance the moments that matter. By engaging proactively through predictive analytics, KFC can anticipate guest needs, reduce churn, increase satisfaction, and strengthen guest relationships, solidifying its position as a leader in the QSR industry.
Employee Experience: Revving Up Engagement To Turbocharge Team Spirit
Ford Motor Company's experience management program has undergone a significant transformation, focusing on enhanced employee listening capabilities and improved program efficiency. By partnering with Qualtrics, Ford has transitioned to a more streamlined platform that captures employee sentiment more effectively across its global workforce of over 150,000 employees. One of their standout achievements includes increasing response rates for their annual survey by 25 points, allowing leadership to gain deeper insights into employee engagement and satisfaction. This data-driven approach enabled Ford to proactively address workplace challenges, tailor strategic initiatives, and create a more inclusive environment, ultimately reinforcing the company's commitment to innovation and teamwork.
More comprehensive employee listening has been able to facilitate enhanced leader responsiveness to employee feedback, helping to cultivate a culture of trust and transparency. This, in turn, has created an environment for greater engagement and a more resilient organizational culture. Additionally, integrating insights from employee experiences with customer feedback now paves the way for streamlined operations and targeted interventions in areas like communication and rewards. With these improvements, Ford is not only optimizing its people analytics but also aligning talent decisions with broader business outcomes, positioning itself for continued growth and long-term success in a rapidly evolving market.
Strategy & Research: Optimizing Trip Experiences With Research
Booking.com, one of the world's largest online travel agencies, is committed to enhancing user experience across its extensive range of services, including accommodations, flights, and car rentals. To navigate the diverse travel tech landscape and meet the expectations of millions of customers, the company has developed a robust marketing, brand, and customer research strategy. This data-driven approach enables Booking.com to continuously improve its platform and offerings while delivering significant value to stakeholders.
Understanding the importance of customer feedback, Booking.com’s Customer Research team focuses on optimizing the post-trip experience through in-depth market studies, while the Marketing Research team tracks brand performance across multiple travel verticals and global markets. By leveraging Qualtrics AI and experimenting with synthetic data, Booking.com is pioneering innovative strategies to gain deeper insights into traveler attitudes, ensuring its platform remains responsive to emerging trends and user needs. This comprehensive experience management program positions Booking.com as a leader in the travel tech sector, making it easier for everyone to explore the world.
Government: Boosting Employee Morale and Citizen Trust
Following the passage of Governor Reynold's 2023 legislation to realign state government by reducing cabinet-level departments by 57% and enhancing interdepartmental collaboration, the State of Iowa implemented a unified Employee Experience feedback program in partnership with Qualtrics, serving all 18,000 employees. Initial engagement surveys revealed a critical need for improved communication. The State of Iowa responded with town halls, weekly updates, and micro-sites for real-time information – resulting in a 20% increase in employee satisfaction with managerial communication and a 14% rise in trust in leadership. The program has since expanded to include touchpoints during onboarding and exit interviews, providing decision-makers with valuable insights through comprehensive role-based dashboards that reinforce the state’s commitment to a transparent and engaged workforce.
Iowa’s XM strategy now encompasses feedback from all stakeholders, including the citizens they serve. By utilizing Qualtrics XM for Customer Experience, the state has established a singular solution to address Iowans’ concerns across all government service touchpoints, reflecting its dedication to enhancing workforce engagement and customer experience.
Financial Services: Banking on Journey Mapping To Turn Customer Friction Into Satisfaction
As a financial services company with the nation’s largest all-digital bank, Ally Financial has long recognized that delivering outstanding experience for key journeys is core to its competitive positioning and long-term success. To achieve this and more, the company partnered with Qualtrics to deeply understand and eliminate friction across digital and contact center journeys – Ally’s key interaction channels. The company mapped the customer journeys, and, by tagging each moment of friction to a specific journey step, was able to precisely pinpoint where the issues lay. Through Qualtrics’ omnichannel listening tools, as well as its advanced Natural Language Processing capabilities, Ally gathers and analyzes customer feedback from chats, calls, digital, and email surveys, enabling faster insights across its contact center operations to drive greater customer experiences.
Ally used insights gained to develop a highly effective automated system that accurately directs customers to the most helpful pathways when they reach out via phone or chat. The new system boasts an impressive 90% accuracy rate in mapping customers to the correct customer journey pathways which increased accuracy by 15% - this has enhanced the customer experience. Through this innovative approach, Ally has not only improved customer satisfaction but also fostered stronger relationships with its clients.
Education: Empowering Educator and Student Voices
Omaha Public Schools is leading the way in enhancing employee experience and student well-being as part of its comprehensive experience management program. The district launched an innovative, data-driven initiative to improve teacher retention by analyzing exit surveys and new teacher feedback. The district analyzed teachers' expectations and realities regarding student behavior, training, and support, highlighting areas contributing to turnover. In response, Omaha Public Schools implemented a robust listening strategy that includes onboarding surveys and just-in-time ticketing, allowing for immediate responses to the needs of new teachers and fostering a supportive environment for educators.
In addition to prioritizing the employee experience, Omaha Public Schools remains dedicated to enhancing student well-being. As Nebraska's largest and most diverse district of more than 52,000 students, Omaha Public Schools has utilized Qualtrics to centralize data collection in collaboration with its counseling department. This transition from paper documentation has allowed the district to respond quickly to insights previously unavailable at the district level. By eliminating inefficiencies and bringing together fragmented data, Omaha Public Schools focuses on a safe and supportive educational environment that benefits staff and students using insights, fostering a culture of care and engagement across the district.
Healthcare: Revolutionizing Care Every Step of the Way
Community Health Network, an Indiana-based health system, launched a multi-year, organization-wide experience management (XM) strategy. This initiative was designed to refine their Patient and Caregiver (Employee) Experience strategic plan, ensuring that every interaction contributed to their mission of enhancing the health and well-being of the communities they served. Since launch, response rates have increased by 300% among patients and 91% among caregivers – respectively, that is 4x and 2x more voices heard and actioned upon.
Community remains steadfast in its commitment to continuous improvement. By embracing real-time feedback, fostering a culture of collaboration, and prioritizing both patient and caregiver experiences, they are setting new standards for excellence in healthcare. Their XM strategy is not just about optimizing processes—it is about building meaningful connections, improving health outcomes, and ensuring that every individual who interacts with their network receives the highest quality of care, as shown through a proactive approach to connect 7000 patients to primary care, facilitating early disease detection and management. Through innovation, adaptability, and an unwavering dedication to their mission, Community is shaping the future of patient and caregiver experiences—one interaction at a time.