Buyers Guides for Customer Experience Management

2026 Software Provider and Product Assessment

The ISG Buyers Guides for Customer Experience Management are the distillation of continuous market and product research. They are an assessment of how well software providers’ offerings address enterprises’ requirements for platforms software. The Value Index methodology is structured to support a request for information (RFI) for a request for proposal (RFP) process by incorporating all criteria needed to evaluate, select, utilize and maintain relationships with software providers. The ISG Buyers Guide evaluates customer experience and the product experience in its capability and platform.

The 2026 ISG Buyers Guides™ for Customer Experience Management evaluate leading software providers across five platform industry areas: Customer Experience Management, Customer Journey Management, AI Customer Experience Management, Retail Customer Experience Management and Customer Experience Management Emerging Providers. Each guide delivers unique research, detailed ratings and rankings and in-depth analyses to help enterprises assess and select the CXM software that best fits their requirements.

• The Customer Experience Management Buyers Guide evaluates 28 software providers offering products supporting customer interaction management, journey orchestration and lifecycle analytics. The guide assesses the following providers: Adobe, Braze, CSG, Emplifi, Freshworks, Gainsight, Genesys, Glassbox, HubSpot, Intercom, Medallia, Microsoft, MoEngage, Netcore, Nextiva, NiCE, Oracle, Qualtrics, Salesforce, SAP, SAS, ServiceNow, Sprinklr, SugarCRM, Talkdesk, Verint, Zendesk and Zoho.

• The Customer Journey Management Buyers Guide evaluates 28 software providers offering products supporting cross-channel journey orchestration and lifecycle visibility. The guide assesses the following providers: Adobe, Braze, CSG, Emplifi, Freshworks, Gainsight, Genesys, Glassbox, HubSpot, Intercom, Medallia, Microsoft, MoEngage, Netcore, Nextiva, NiCE, Oracle, Qualtrics, Salesforce, SAP, SAS, ServiceNow, Sprinklr, SugarCRM, Talkdesk, Verint, Zendesk and Zoho.
  
  
• The AI Customer Experience Management Buyers Guide evaluates 28 software providers offering products supporting AI-driven analytics, journey orchestration and customer interaction optimization. The guide assesses the following providers: Adobe, Braze, CSG, Emplifi, Freshworks, Gainsight, Genesys, Glassbox, HubSpot, Intercom, Medallia, Microsoft, MoEngage, Netcore, Nextiva, NiCE, Oracle, Qualtrics, Salesforce, SAP, SAS, ServiceNow, Sprinklr, SugarCRM, Talkdesk, Verint, Zendesk and Zoho.
  
  

• The Retail Customer Experience Management Buyers Guide evaluates 19 software providers offering products supporting customer lifecycle management, personalization and omnichannel engagement. The guide assesses the following providers: Adobe, Birdeye, Braze, Emplifi, Freshworks, Genesys, HubSpot, MoEngage, Netcore, Nextiva, NiCE, Qualtrics, Salesforce, SAP, Sprinklr, Talkdesk, Verint, Zendesk and Zoho.

• The Customer Experience Management Emerging Providers Buyers Guide evaluates 14 software providers offering products supporting journey orchestration, analytics and cross-system coordination. The guide assesses the following providers: Alida, ASAPP, Birdeye, CallMiner, ChurnZero, Custellence, Exotel, Forsta, Hiver, Insider One, KMS Lighthouse, Quantum Metric, Sogolytics and Tidio.

To view the executive summaries of the research, please select the report below.

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To learn more about our Buyers Guide services for software providers including purchasing the complete research and charts or performing an assessment, click here.