CX Maturity Assessments: Stop Scoring Yourself and Start Using Them to Drive Change
By Heather Siebken, Director, Councils & Marketing | 5-minute read
Resources: CX Maturity Assessment Playbook | CX Maturity Model | 10 Dimensions of CX Maturity Graphic | Sample Assessment Questions
Customer experience maturity assessments are becoming a standard tool across utilities. In a recent Customer Experience Leadership Council poll2, 38% of attendees completed one, and another 50% plan to do so soon. Assessments offer structure in an area that can otherwise feel vague, defining what “good” looks like across various CX capabilities.
That’s the value. The disconnect shows up in what happens next.
Because despite widespread use of maturity models, many utilities are not seeing corresponding improvements in the outcomes that matter most: lower call volumes, reduced truck rolls, improved payment behavior, or stronger customer trust.
Chartwell’s Customer Experience Consultant, John Bord, advises, “The problem is not the tool. It’s how it’s being used. Maturity assessments are often treated as diagnostic exercises that validate what leaders already suspect: they’re somewhere in the middle, with room to improve. That insight rarely changes behavior. It creates alignment, but not action.”
The real gap: Maturity models describe capability, not performance
Most CX maturity models are structured around capabilities, asking “do you have: a VoC program? journey mapping? governance model in place?”
These are useful questions, but they don’t answer what executives actually care about: Are these capabilities changing operational outcomes? This is why two utilities can score similarly on a maturity model and perform very differently in practice. One has embedded those capabilities into how the business runs.
Lisa Henaghen from Versant Power shared the maturity assessment made CX tangible for executives, turning it into a clear roadmap with defined initiatives, which unlocked buy-in and cross-functional engagement.
Why maturity work stalls after the assessment
There are three consistent failure points:
- Output is too Broad. Typical assessments evaluate dozens of capabilities. The output is a long list of gaps with no clear sequencing or clear prioritization. Everything looks important, which means nothing gets done at scale.
- Ownership is Unclear. The assessment sits within a CX or customer strategy team, but the actions required to improve maturity sit in operations, IT, or field services. Without shared ownership, execution stalls.
- Measured by Presence, Not Effectiveness. Having a chatbot, survey program, or journey maps counts as progress in maturity, even if it is not improving outcomes. This creates the illusion of advancement without changing underlying results.
What leading utilities are doing differently
More advanced organizations are narrowing the focus of maturity assessments. Instead of treating maturity as a broad capability benchmark, they are applying it to specific, high-impact journeys or cost drivers, such as billing and payment experience, outage communication, start/stop/move service and/or high-frequency contact drivers.
This changes the output from “we need to improve across 25 areas” to “we need to fix these 3 things that are driving 30% of our demand.” It also makes the work actionable. When maturity is tied to a specific journey, it becomes easier to assign ownership, define metrics, and track impact.
The shift that matters: From benchmarking to decision-making
When maturity assessments are used effectively, they stop being benchmarking tools and start becoming prioritization tools. Check out this case study1 where Con Edison discovered that billing errors and high-effort issue resolution were the primary sources of customer frustration despite already having VoC, journey mapping, and CSAT programs in place.
When used as a prioritization tool, maturity becomes less about progression through levels and more about identifying friction in the system:
- Where are customers getting stuck?
- Where are they escalating unnecessarily?
- Where is the organization doing work it could avoid?
That shift ties maturity directly to operational metrics such as fewer unnecessary contacts, reduced field dispatches, faster resolution or improved customer clarity. Kerry Lay from Con Edison recently stated, “maturity assessments helped quantify gaps and tie them to business impact; making it easier to justify investments and align with priorities like technology roadmaps.”
Chartwell’s ‘Put It Into Practice’ Brief
If your organization is using (or planning to use) a CX maturity model, change how it’s applied:
- Limit the scope
- Tie every maturity gap to a measurable outcome
- Assign operational ownership
- Set a 90–180-day impact expectation
Maturity Assessments used correctly force a different kind of accountability; one tied to outcomes, not capability scores. They are valuable when they help you decide what to fix next, who is accountable for fixing it, and are directly tied to operational change.
1Requires Insight Center Membership | 2Requires Customer Experience Leadership Council Membership
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Heather Siebken is a product and marketing leader and customer experience expert with more than 25 years of experience driving innovation, customer engagement, and strategic growth. She currently leads councils and marketing at Chartwell, where she designs industry forums and content that help utilities establish a customer experience strategy to navigate customer expectations and digital transformation.
Previously, Heather led product development and marketing at Omaha Public Power District, where she oversaw a broad portfolio of customer energy solutions spanning energy efficiency, demand response, electrification, and customer assistance programs. She is known for her strategic foresight, storytelling, and ability to translate complex trends into actionable business outcomes.
