Blog

Thursday, February 5, 2026

Voice of the Client Research: State of the Union 2026

This blog was written by Andrew Cloutier, Partner at Anova.

As 2026 kicks into high gear, I want to revisit the trends we’re seeing in Anova’s research across clients and industries. During Anova’s 20^th anniversary in 2024, I reflected on where the industry had shifted since Anova opened its doors. In that piece, I noted that the pace of changes had accelerated – and eighteen months on, that trend has only picked up pace.  There are four key themes that we’re seeing as we enter the second half (!) of the 2020s:

1: An increased focus on retention and expansion

One of the most prominent observations we’ve noticed is that our clients – both new and long-standing – are placing an increased emphasis on our customer satisfaction and churn analysis, with an eye towards increased retention, upsell and cross-sell opportunities.  Organizations are turning inward because we are in an extended period of considerable uncertainty. As discussed below, prospective new logo clients are hesitant to bring on new vendors when a new AI model or legislative decision could cause disruption for their business.

It is no surprise, then, that many of our win / loss programs have evolved to include pre-renewal, at-risk, or pre-upsell components. Protecting and expanding existing clients has always been important, but doubly so in this current period of uncertainty. Our analysis enables our clients to dig deeper than a satisfaction or willingness to recommend metric and uncover the real drivers of friction in client relationships – issues like service model or product gaps that imperil relationships that are critical to protect.

Additionally, Anova’s win / loss analysis shows that sellers face a higher bar when selling into existing relationships, with an expectation that client’s specific needs and experiences will proactively be taken into account during the sales process. Successfully navigating these higher expectations requires collaboration and flexibility between sellers and relationship managers.

2: A Higher Bar for Technology / AI Acceleration

As AI sweeps the world, prospects and existing clients in all industry verticals are demanding ever-more robust technology capabilities and roadmaps of their vendors, though these new “table stakes” are also presenting new challenges for both sellers and buyers.

To use the win / loss industry as an example, AI tools present intriguing opportunities for automation and scalability, though widespread CRM data completeness and accuracy issues create a shaky foundation on which to build. New tools are constantly improving and reducing the frequency of hallucination, though in our experience it is still important to fact and sanity-check all AI-assisted output. LLMs have the ability to quickly and cheaply create output that passes the “eye test”, though the jury is still out as to how well providing ever more data to already-overwhelmed clients aligns with actionable insights and true client centricity.

3: Ease of Doing Business Increasingly Drives Decisions 

While it has always been a topic raised in win / loss and client satisfaction research, both new prospects and existing relationships are placing a higher emphasis on how easy it is to do business with potential vendors, even relative to the quality of the company’s offering and the professionalism of the sales process. Dynamics like burdensome contracting processes, rigorous information security / compliance audits, rigidity in scopes of work, and consistency / responsiveness of client service are coming into increased focus in how our clients evaluate whether to purchase or continue using a vendor. The prospect of integrating additional vendors and technology is becoming increasingly daunting, and “conversion aversion” is growing.

4: Slowdown in Decision Speed

A related dynamic to the factors discussed above is an overall slowdown in decision-making processes that borders on paralysis. In Anova’s win / loss research, the average length of sales cycles is increasing, and our clients are seeing a higher number of stalled deals or no decisions reached. As I noted in 2024, information overload contributes to slower decisions – the sheer quantity of data that is available to buyers is increasing the challenges facing sales teams to differentiate their offerings and articulate their solutions’ value propositions.

Global macroeconomic uncertainty has created increased scrutiny on every budget dollar. Whether due to actual AI adoption or the prospect of it, teams are being asked to do more with less to justify their value-add.

This dynamic has increased since 2024 (as explored by our research analyst Cam Chambers in a recent post), exacerbated by the growing prevalence of AI, which can quickly synthesize large volumes of data. While superficially useful, if the influx of new data does not drive action, it can muddy the waters and continue to slow down the decision-making process for purchasing teams.

These are just some of the most pronounced trends we’re seeing among our clients as we start off the new year. Every client will tell a different story – although many times, those stories rhyme. If you’d like to see how your organization fits into these larger trends, reach out – we’d love to help your business navigate 2026.