ICXA 2026 Entries Are Open: The 3 Critical Mistakes CX Competition Entrants Make Most Often

Entries for the International Customer Experience Awards 2026 (ICXA 2026) are now open. The questions I get about the competition usually revolve around category selection and the entry form. But the truly critical question is this: Which entries actually stand out at the judges’ table?

This article answers exactly that question — from the inside. [We previously covered the 2026 CX awards calendar and the strategic value of competitions — if you haven’t read it, I suggest starting there.]

The One Difference Between Winning and Eliminated Entries in CX Competitions

After reading hundreds of entries, I noticed something: what separates the eliminated entries from the finalists is less the quality of the work than how that work is presented.

Those who delivered the biggest projects didn’t always win. But those who told their story brilliantly made it to the top, even when their project wasn’t all that big.

I can almost hear you asking how to win a CX competition. In this article, let’s focus on how you lose one.

Mistake 1: Entering Different Categories With the Same Submission

You’ve realized your project fits both the “Best CX Strategy” and the “Best Digital Transformation” categories. Great. Competing in more than one category is the right call. Copying and pasting the same entry into different categories is not.

Each category has different judging criteria. The judges score against a rubric built on those criteria. If a category includes a question on “human resources transformation” and you didn’t answer it, you score zero on that item, however impressive your work may be.

A separate entry for every additional category. A tailored narrative for every criterion. This small difference ends up making a big one.

Mistake 2: Failing to Show Impact With Data and Evidence

You delivered a great project. Customers are happy, management is pleased, and you’re walking the halls like a rock star. You’ve entered a CX competition, and you’re sure you’ll win.

At the awards ceremony, they call your competitor to the stage.

Hard as it is to believe, the most common reason is this: the before-and-after difference your project made to the customer experience was never conveyed through objective data, and how you stand apart from the industry average was never shown. You may have moved the judges emotionally — but to score you, the judges want evidence.

In the finals, I have seen entries that offered no data at all — not weak evidence, but none. I scored them with a heavy heart. Don’t let yours be one of them.

Mistake 3: Failing to Build a Strong Narrative

Customer experience is the art of managing emotions. While you’re trying to win your customers’ hearts, why not show the judges the same care?

Why did you take on this project? How hard was it? What changed in your customers’ lives? An entry that answers these questions with passion will always beat a cold entry with flawless numbers, because judges are human, too.

This is precisely where Turkish companies are weakest in international competitions: structuring and telling a story. It still surprises me that a nation this emotional writes entries that leave emotion out. From the US to Europe, from Türkiye to the Middle East, in every competition I have judged and on every jury, I have seen the same result: a story that draws the judges in goes a long way toward winning the award.

Data is proof. A story is an invitation. To win, you need both.

Professional Support for Your ICXA 2026 Entry

Preparing an entry forces companies to look at their own CX work from the outside. “What did we do, why did we do it, what did we change, how did we measure it?” Producing disciplined answers to these questions is a learning experience for the organization in its own right.

Some teams prefer to manage this process entirely in-house. Others bring in a second pair of eyes from outside the organization before submitting, for help with category fit, evidence structure, storyline and presentation prep.

Outside support doesn’t guarantee results. But it often significantly improves an entry’s clarity, its narrative power and its alignment with the judging criteria.

If you’d like to look at your award entry preparation for ICXA 2026 or other global CX competitions through this lens, you can talk to Nord CX.