Disney made waves when it invested $1 billion in overhauling the customer experience for its guests with its MagicBands wearable technology.

With a focus on simplifying tasks, increasing ease of use and usability, Disney was able to build an entirely new way for children and adults to experience the parks.

However, Disney isn’t the only company seeing success from making big investments in customer experience, according to John Dalton, vice president and research director at Forrester Research. In fact, Dalton says an entire segment of the economy is being reinvented with digital tools and experiences to make interactions with customers more relevant and memorable.

"The truth is its happening across the board," Dalton said.

Companies like Starbucks have launched mobile payment apps, reaping $1 billion in benefits in 2013 alone. Big box stores like Lowes have rolled out apps to help DIY customers navigate their aisles, and car companies such as Tesla are building their own CRM system for complete control and a competitive edge. Delta Airlines acquired Travelport to collect and manage bookings and registrations to help prevent cancellations, the bane of airline customer experience ratings.

The push into customer experience is happening a lot faster than anticipated, Dalton said. He called it the "Age of the Customer," where customers have more communication and social media at their fingertips and often have more control over the company's brand than the marketing team.

The path to maturity in customer experience starts with repairing broken areas, then elevating customer experience to a core business practice, optimizing a sophisticated toolkit and finally differentiating the customer experience from competitors.

The bottom line, Dalton said, is that customer experience is no longer a "nice to have," it's a necessity. He recommended solution providers start thinking about customer experience and hire employees that understand it. They should get started now, he said.

"If you don’t have people who understand [customer experience] you are very, very soon going to be out of business. They are hard to find, but they are critical, go get them," Dalton said.

For smaller companies, it's not about having the "sexiest" technology, Dalton said, it's about focusing on one problem and choosing those assets that will best fill customer needs.

Besides happier customers, improving customer experience can actually help companies improve their bottom lines, Dalton said. For example, he said Sprint was having a problem with usability of its website and was able to save $2 billion a year by making it more customer friendly, cutting back on the need for call centers.

"This is big money – it's really big money," Dalton said.