Customer Experience Talent Is Everywhere, But It Doesn’t Show Up the Same Way Everywhere

Customer Experience has quietly become one of the most globalised functions in modern organisations. Support teams now operate across continents, languages, and time zones, yet many companies still approach CX hiring as if talent behaves the same way everywhere.

When Maki analysed hundreds of thousands of candidate assessments globally for Customer Support roles, combining large-scale candidate feedback with assessment performance data, a clear pattern emerged. Strong CX talent exists everywhere, but how it shows up, and how it performs, depends heavily on market maturity, role design, and the hiring experience itself.

As one candidate put it simply: “The process felt like a reflection of how the company treats customers.”

That connection between hiring experience and CX performance appears again and again in the data.

What the Data Reveals About Where CX Talent Thrives

In mature CX markets such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, and Canada, drawing on feedback and performance data from well over 390,000 assessed candidates, the alignment between candidate sentiment and performance is striking. Assessment scores in these regions tend to cluster tightly, with averages and medians sitting close together. This consistency reflects candidates who are generally well prepared for structured CX environments and familiar with professional hiring processes.

Candidate feedback reinforces that sense of confidence and predictability. Many candidates describe feeling reassured by clarity and structure:

“Everything was explained clearly, so I knew exactly what was expected of me.”
“The questions felt directly related to the role, nothing felt random.”

These markets are particularly strong for digital and chat-based CX roles, where process discipline and consistency matter as much as empathy. When candidates recognise the job in the assessment, performance follows.

High-Volume CX Hubs | Variability Does Not Mean Lower Quality

A different, but equally important, story emerges from regions such as the Philippines and India. Across these markets, Maki assessed more than 260,000 candidates in the Philippines alone, alongside high-volume hiring programmes in India. Here, assessment scores often show greater spread. Average results may sit slightly lower than in North America or Western Europe, but the strongest candidates score just as highly as top performers anywhere else.

Candidate feedback helps explain this variation. Many candidates emphasise how much the way the process is framed affects their confidence:

“Once I understood what the assessment was looking for, it felt much easier.”
“Clear instructions made a big difference, I felt more confident answering.”

The data suggests this is less about skill gaps and more about enablement. When expectations are explicit and the assessment mirrors real CX scenarios, engagement and performance increase noticeably. These regions continue to offer some of the strongest CX talent pipelines globally, particularly for voice and blended roles, when hiring processes are well calibrated.

LATAM | Where Human Connection Shapes Performance

In Latin American markets such as Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil, based on tens of thousands of candidate assessments across the region, feedback carries a more emotional dimension. Candidates frequently reference how the process made them feel, not just how it functioned.

Comments often reflect a strong response to tone and warmth: 

“It felt very human, not like I was talking to a machine.”
 

“The experience was respectful and made me feel valued.”

That sentiment shows up in the performance data as well. Assessment results in these regions often highlight strong communication and emotional intelligence, particularly in customer-facing voice scenarios. When the hiring experience feels conversational and empathetic, candidates tend to perform at their best.

Europe | Trust, Fairness, and Skills-Based Evaluation

Across continental Europe, including Germany, France, and Netherlands, trust in the hiring process plays a central role in both sentiment and outcomes.

Candidates consistently respond positively to assessments that feel fair and clearly justified:

“The evaluation felt objective and relevant to the role.”

“I appreciated that the questions were clearly linked to real work scenarios.”

Performance data in these markets often shows slightly more conservative averages but tighter clustering around the median. Ambiguous questions or poorly contextualised tasks can quickly undermine confidence:

“Some parts weren’t clear, so I wasn’t sure how to approach my answers.”

Here, transparency and structure are not just compliance requirements; they are performance enablers.

One Pattern That Appears Everywhere

Despite regional differences, one insight cuts across every geography and across hundreds of thousands of assessments: candidates perform better, and feel better about the employer, when the assessment genuinely reflects the job.

This is echoed repeatedly in feedback:

“It felt like a preview of what the role would actually be like.”
“I could imagine myself doing the job while answering the questions.”

The data supports this perception. Chat-based and digital CX roles consistently produce higher and more stable scores than voice-only roles. Voice roles, which demand real-time problem solving and confidence, naturally show wider variation. These differences are not about talent quality; they reflect alignment between assessment design and role reality.

What This Means for CX Leaders

When assessment scores are viewed in isolation, they can obscure more than they reveal. When paired with candidate feedback from large, globally representative samples, they become diagnostic. High scores combined with positive sentiment point to markets and role designs that are ready to scale. Wider score ranges often highlight opportunities to improve expectation setting, role clarity, or onboarding rather than reasons to exclude talent.

As one candidate summed it up:

“The process made me want to work there, it felt fair and well thought through.”

The most effective CX hiring teams recognise that assessments are not just filters. They are feedback loops; shaping both who joins the organisation and how prepared they are to succeed.

The Takeaway

CX hiring is already part of the customer experience.

The way candidates are assessed, guided, and spoken to shapes not only hiring outcomes, but future performance. CX talent is global. Expectations are local. Performance is contextual.

The organisations that succeed are those that design hiring experiences with the same care, clarity, and empathy they expect their CX teams to deliver every day.

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