It’s one of the most urgent blind spots in experience design today: too many organizations still treat customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) as separate endeavors. But here’s the truth—you cannot deliver a standout customer experience without an engaged, supported, and aligned workforce behind it.

That’s not just philosophy. It’s operational reality.

 Fabric, our 2025 EX Insights Report uncovered a striking and recurring pattern: companies are hitting a ceiling in their CX performance, and the root cause isn’t external. It’s internal. It’s EX. As one executive told us in Fabric’s 2025 EX Insights report:

“We put all this money into optimizing customer experiences, but the reality is that our employees are the ones delivering them. We aren’t acknowledging the obvious connection between the two.”

Meeting and event professionals sit at the intersection of both experiences. You’re designing moments for customers and employees. You’re managing emotional dynamics in real time. You see firsthand what happens when teams are aligned—and what happens when they’re not.

Events are a mirror of the culture behind them. When the EX is strong, your event staff are energized, informed, and empathetic. When it’s weak, even the best program can feel flat or disconnected.

As experience orchestrators, you have the opportunity to lead here. Ask how EX is being measured – not just event ROI. Advocate for more integrated planning between internal and external experience teams. Use your events as proof points of what’s possible when CX and EX are designed together.

When You Ignore EX, Customers Feel It

Many organizations continue to pour energy, money, and attention into CX initiatives. They run voice-of-customer programs, build sophisticated journey maps, and optimize interfaces down to the pixel. Yet what’s too often missing from the equation is the human infrastructure required to sustain that level of excellence: the people inside the company delivering that experience every day.

Every employee contributes to the customer experience—not just the ones on the front lines. Whether it’s the designer building the app, the analyst interpreting the data, or the HR team defining the onboarding experience, employees are the architects of your brand in motion. When they’re burned out, disconnected, or under-resourced, customers can feel it. They may not know the cause, but they always sense the symptoms: lagging service, inconsistent quality, and emotionally tone-deaf interactions.

And as our research shows, this isn’t just a theory. It’s a systemic issue.

The Stats Tell the Story: CX and EX Are Still Siloed

Fabric’s latest research uncovered a troubling reality: CX and EX continue to operate in silos, even though their success is deeply intertwined.

-79% of organizations report having no formal process to connect CX metrics with EX data.

-91% of leaders say their EX efforts are still viewed as “HR-owned,” with little influence over customer-facing strategies.

-Just 14% of companies track any correlation between employee engagement and CX outcomes like NPS or CSAT.

This gap isn't just academic—it’s operational. It’s emotional. And it’s showing up in ways that customers feel and employees live every day: burnout, inconsistency, misalignment, and a growing sense that the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing.

The Future Is Integrated

The path forward isn’t about choosing between CX and EX. It’s about designing for both—together, always. Because the truth is: your customer experience will never outperform your employee experience.

Fabric is here to help organizations recognize that truth—and build systems that honor it.

Because when we meet—employees, customers, teams, and communities—we shape more than an event. We shape the future.

About the Author:

Keith Pine is Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Fabric, a leading Customer Experience and Employee Experience Consulting Firm. With more than 20 years of operational leadership in the experience management industry, Keith previously served as Chief Operating Officer at both Isobar and Organic. His career has been defined by helping businesses operationalize bold experience visions and turn strategy into scalable impact.

At Fabric, he continues to guide organizations in bridging the growing gap between what businesses do and what their customers and employees truly expect.

Contact Keith at keith@fabric.cx or reach out to him on LinkedIn.