November 13, 2025
Celebrating the Glitz and Glamour From the International Customer Experience Awards 2025
Starting at a tangent, depending on who you believe, businesses with a strong sense of customer belonging enjoy a five-to-six times revenue growth rate compared to others.
Purely coincidentally; the impossibly, effortlessly, glamourous Italian couple leaving the Park Plaza London Riverbank as the CXM and Awards International team arrived to set up for the 8th International Customer Experience Awards 2025 made us, very much, want to belong there. (punto bonus gratuito to Radisson)
But even that couple were out-glammed by some of the finery on show as over 400 finalists, judges and guests from the world of customer experience gathered on Wednesday 12th November to celebrate the global best in class of CX across 50+ awards.
From Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Brazil, the US, Moldova and all across Europe, CX professionals and cultures gathered to celebrate how the world focuses on and elevates the smallest of customer interactions to corporate level strategies.
Talking Up Global Customer Experience
After some industrial-grade setting up across two floors, the ICXA busy day of events began with a packed hall and global online audience to discuss and learn from the greats in CX.
The show kicked off with CCXP’s Katie Stabler welcoming our hosts and guests before launching into barrage of insight.
Gladly’s CRO, Andy D’Amato, delivered a powerful AI-focused keynote that brought a buzz to the room. His position that speed and trust aren’t opposites—they’re partners, explored how customer AI (very much the giant bull elephant in the room) empowers brands to personalise customer experiences at scale, when delivered with an outcomes-based approach rooted in trust.
Then, Charlotte Elmer took to the stage to help guests understand personality across cultural boundaries for a truly global audience. Deploying the colour energy wheel (go, team yellow!), our networking skills were tested as opposites met and attracted in conversational exercises.
Cracking on after lunch, CXM’s own David Dungay interviewed enterprise storyteller Dave Michels on the impacts of AI, before presenting insights from the coming-soon CXM report, “Insights from the ICXA ’25 Entries.” It will highlight how the work on the ground floor and back office from finalists is having a real-world impact in both massive and personal ways.
Finally, a fireside chat featuring Katie, Dave Michels, Jannecke Drangert-Hveding and Sue Duris took questions from the room and online audience on the different perspectives of CX and where the industry is headed. You can read more on the Judge’s perspective of the finalists here.
Up go the Band, the Lights and the Glamour
After a much-needed break to absorb the day’s insights, the evening Awards proper kicked off. The Park Plaza ballroom was rammed with global guests, with a buzz of anticipation rippling through the throng, and hopefully among the online world audience.
Hosts Ian Golding and Nienke Bloem set the glamour bar high and the competitive tone with a UK vs Netherlands rivalry for the most awards.
Backed by a live band, and with nearly 60 categories to get through, there was a high-octane effort from the duo to keep to schedule, while Gold Award winners took their moment to shine on the stage. You can review the full list of winners here.
Many went to attendees online, and we hope to catch up with them soon. But CXM’s main role of the evening was to interview the winners as they came off the stage and capture the essence of their achievements.
Special congratulations from our table 18 went to Emile and Isaac from MEXC for picking up a stack of ICXA awards including Gold for Best Use of Customer Insight and Feedback, Financial Services.
And our favourite moment goes to Claire Bristowe, winner of CX Leader of the Year. She managed to put aside tears of joy from the main stage in the short journey to the interview stage to give a composed response to her win. Being witness to these small, joyous, moments makes the great effort and organisation more than worthwhile.
If your business or CX team want to be a part of such an exciting and amazing community and event, entries will open soon for next year’s International awards, the UKCXA26 edition or the many international flavours.