Optimal Customer Experience as a Strategic Imperative
Retailers and consumer brands that fail to deliver an optimal customer experience risk losing customers permanently.
According to PwC’s 2025 Customer Experience Survey (1):
· 61% expect quality customer service
· 59% expect clear communication & transparency
· 53% expect a seamless experience
The implications are serious; 29% of consumers stopped buying from a brand due to a poor experience (1).
Difficult Marketing Environment
This loss of customers is happening in a difficult marketing environment where customer acquisition costs continue to rise due to:
· Loss of third-party cookies has reduced tracking fidelity
· Channel proliferation introduces confusion
· Attribution is complicated
· Digital competition has intensified
Customer Experience Shapes Loyalty and Revenue
Customers judge brands on outcomes. Expectations are rising across touchpoints. PwC Research shows that 65% (2) of customers consider experience more influential than great advertising. Customers will pay more for better experiences and are willing to switch brands when their experience falls short.
Customer experience is now a core point of differentiation. Companies that lead in customer experience outperform their industry peers. McKinsey Research also shows that companies that are the leaders of customer experience achieved more than 2x the revenue growth of “CX laggards” (3).
These findings have direct implications for retailers and brands. In highly competitive categories where product features and price points are increasingly commoditized, experience becomes the primary lever for loyalty. Experiences that align with customer expectations at every point of interaction reduce churn, deepen engagement, and drive repeat purchase behavior.
Creating a Seamless Omnichannel Customer Experience
McKinsey research showed that a 20% increase in customer satisfaction can boost a company’s share of wallet by 5-10% (3). That makes customer experience a meaningful strategic investment that goes beyond the purview of marketing or customer service teams. Those financial gains are only achievable when experience excellence is embedded across the entire customer journey, not confined to a single function. Customer perception of your brand is shaped by every interaction across that journey, such as:
Digital Experience
Ease of navigation
Clear product information
Frictionless checkout
Mobile optimization
Post-Purchase Experience
Shipping speed
Delivery accuracy
Packaging quality
Return simplicity
In-Store Experience
Ability to find products easily
Checkout speed
Store environment
Associate interactions
Each interaction contributes to a cumulative brand impression. That impression determines whether customers return, increase their spend, or switch.
Many organizations treat the customer experience as a departmental responsibility rather than considering the necessity of a seamless omnichannel system that serves the customer at every step. When teams operate in silos, customers generally don’t feel well-served by the brand, because they are typically not recognized for their loyalty, purchase history, or treated with the respect any new or loyal customer deserves. Consider the impact of this siloed approach:
· Marketing promotes loyalty
· Store operations focus on inventory management
· Customer service resolves issues in isolation
· Technology prioritizes back-end systems over customer-facing features
Customers will suffer with this fragmented approach. Loyal customers may not be recognized across channels. Operational systems may not support marketing promises. Recurring complaints may not be escalated to teams capable of addressing root causes.
The customer experience must be designed across the omnichannel value chain. For retail and consumer brands, this means aligning product design or merchandising, marketing, operations and customer service functions so that every decision contributes to consistent, predictable outcomes. PwC research indicates that more than 50% of customers expect a seamless customer experience (1). To achieve this, organizations need to include customer experience in strategic planning, adjust their organizational structure and align measurement and incentives.
Marketing’s Role in Improving the Customer Experience
Savvy marketing organizations can increase their return on marketing investments by advocating for or leading cross-functional projects to improve the customer experience. This is one lever where a single investment focus will have ongoing financial benefits. Compare this investment to the need to overspend to acquire new customers resulting from the loss of existing customers. Marketing teams can advocate for the following:
1. Omnichannel Customer Experience Focus
· Alignment with Operations teams on shared customer experience objectives
· Coordination across digital and in-store environments
· Creation of a single, cross-functional project
2. Customer Data Platforms
A modern customer data platform unifies behavioral, transactional, and engagement data across channels. This enables:
True omnichannel visibility
Segmentation beyond demographics
Personalized lifecycle programs
3. Customer Feedback Integration
Leverage Customer Service data as a strategic asset:
Call transcripts
Chat logs
Return reasons
Complaint trends
These insights often reveal friction in messaging, positioning, product expectations, or operational execution. When marketing incorporates these insights into messaging, creative, and offer strategy, it reduces preventable dissatisfaction and strengthens trust.
In this model, marketing can advocate for cross-functional projects that align data, communication, and customer insights to improve retention and long-term profitability.
What High-Performing Brands Do Differently
In a year when customer experience scores declined across many industries, the following US brands distinguished themselves by ranking in the top 5% of Forrester’s 2025 Customer Experience Index (4). These include:
· Chewy
· H-E-B
· Navy Federal Credit Union
· USAA
· Zappos
· The US National Park Service (for a surprising twist)
Forrester evaluated the Customer Experience across three dimensions:
1. Effectiveness
2. Ease
3. Emotion
A Forrester analyst notes “even a minor improvement to a brand’s customer experience quality can reduce churn and increase share of wallet.”
Best practices for organizations who want to excel at customer experience may include:
· Identifying friction points across the customer journey
· Redesigning digital or in-store experiences
· Improving service delivery
· Investing in analytics and AI to identify satisfaction drivers
· Embedding personalization at scale
McKinsey reports an 11% increase in revenue from an airline loyalty program as a result of AI and personalization (5).
A Strategic Imperative for Today’s Market
Customer experience must be treated as a strategic asset that influences product design or assortment selection, marketing execution, service delivery, and operational decisions. Companies that align these functions effectively create resilient customer relationships that generate predictable revenue and competitive advantage.
Customer loyalty will increasingly be determined by consistency and value delivered at each interaction. Brands that embed experience into their operating model will perform better financially and build sustainable growth engines.
Align Customer Experience to Drive Measurable Growth
If growth has become harder to achieve despite steady marketing investment, the issue may not be channel mix alone. It may be how marketing, operations and customer service teams are working together. At Froghop Digital, we help retailers and consumer brands identify where friction is limiting customer loyalty and revenue. We then design the marketing programs and omnichannel strategies required to strengthen long-term profitability.
If you are ready to assess how well your organization is delivering a seamless customer journey, let’s start the conversation.
Sources
1. PwC’s 2025 Customer Experience Survey
2. PwC “Experience is everything. Get it right.”
3. McKinsey & Company “Experience-led growth: A new way to create value”, Victoria Bough, Oliver Ehrlich, Harald Fanderi & Rober Schiff.
4. Forrester “2025 Global Customer Experience Index Rankings", June 24, 2025.
https://www.forrester.com/press-newsroom/forrester-global-customer-experience-index-2025-rankings/
5. McKinsey & Company “An inside look at why McKinsey is a Leader in Forrester’s Customer Experience Strategy Consulting Evaluation”, April 8, 2025.