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As part of the research, we surveyed 394 people who identified themselves as customer experience professionals. Here are some of the findings from the report that is available to CXPA members:

• The largest group of professionals (29 percent) belongs to a centralized customer experience organization. The remaining come from different parts of the company, with largest numbers in customer service (22 percent) and marketing (20 percent).
• More than three quarters of respondents list voice of the customer programs within their set of responsibilities. Not far behind are customer insight analysis, change management,. and culture change.
• A whopping 98 percent of respondents agree with the statement "customer experience is a great profession to be in," but only 70 percent are satisfied with their opportunities for professional advancement.
• Thirty-nine percent of respondents are somewhat or very likely to look for a new job inside of their company this year and 44 percent of respondents are likely to look for a new opportunity outside of their firm.
• When we asked about their professional development goals for this year, 81 percent listed networking with more customer experience professionals.
• About two thirds of respondents believe that their company's customer experience efforts have had a positive impact on their business in 2010.

Over the past decade I've had the opportunity to work with hundreds of companies on their customer experience efforts. And one thing is clear about success in the field: Great customer experience happens when great professionals are allowed to do great work in a supportive environment.

In the past these professionals had to fend for themselves; often feeling like isolated customer experience evangelists within their organizations. They had little support from industry standards, an established professional network, or an accepted group of best practices.

Given the growing number of customer experience professionals and the maturity of customer experience management activities, it's time for this to change. It's time for customer experience management to evolve into, and become recognized as, a real professional discipline. The CXPA, numerous industry vendors, and other customer experience advisors have set the wheels in motion to make that happen: From this day forward, customer experience management is a bona fide profession.

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About the Author: Bruce Temkin is customer experience transformist and managing partner of Temkin Group, as well as Chair of the Customer Experience Professionals Association. He blogs at Customer Experience Matters