Ben Geheb
Global Chief Experience Officer
Bridging the Customer-Centricity Gap: Prioritizing CX
Why retailers struggle with customer-centricity despite their claims, and how genuine customer experience is key to building trust and loyalty
The gap between CX talk and CX reality
Despite widespread claims of customer-centricity, many retailers and brands are still struggling to bridge the experience gap. Consumers increasingly perceive businesses as prioritizing their own agendas over genuinely simplifying customer lives. True customer-centricity isn't a marketing slogan; it's defined by the seamless, intuitive experiences customers actually receive.
In fact, 51% of consumers report that while businesses talk customer-centricity, their digital experiences tell a different story. The imperative is clear: shift from mere rhetoric to designing and delivering experiences that genuinely ease customer journeys, solve their problems, and proactively anticipate their needs. It's time to get the basics right.
Understanding a series of key questions will undoubtedly offer a strong starting point for shaping your strategy in this area…
Download The Future Shopper 2025
Many consumers feel there’s a gap between what retailers say and what they deliver. The Future Shopper 2025 report shows that 53% of shoppers think brands are more concerned with furthering their own agendas than putting customers first, and 50% believe businesses have no idea what customers want from their digital experiences. Shoppers frequently encounter friction — from inconsistent pricing to poor fulfilment and lack of transparency — which erodes trust.
Customer-centricity in commerce isn’t just a marketing slogan; it means designing every touchpoint, process, and policy around the customer’s needs, not the company’s convenience. It’s about aligning business decisions with the outcomes that matter most to shoppers — speed, clarity, value, and trust — and being willing to adapt operations, technology, and culture to deliver on those promises.
Trust is earned through consistent, transparent, and value-driven interactions. As supported by our Future Shopper findings, retailers should aim to:
- Be transparent about pricing, delivery times, and stock availability
- Deliver on promises — if you say “next-day delivery,” it must be reliable
- Make returns and refunds simple and fair
- Use authentic customer reviews and avoid over-curated or manipulated feedback
- Communicate proactively about delays, issues, or changes
When customers see that a brand consistently acts in their best interest — even when it’s inconvenient for the business — trust grows.
Bridging the gap requires removing friction and anticipating needs. The report highlights that 45% of shoppers have abandoned a purchase because the buying process was too complicated. Improvement strategies include:
- Offering flexible fulfillment options such as click-and-collect, same-day delivery, and easy returns across channels
- Providing clear, intuitive navigation and search on digital platforms
- Using AI to personalize recommendations and communications so customers find what they need faster
- Consolidating customer service channels so shoppers don’t have to repeat themselves across touchpoints
- Proactively addressing common pain points — for example, sending size guides before purchase or reminders for replenishment items
The key is to focus on the customer’s effort score — how easy it is for them to achieve their goal — and reduce it at every stage.
Best practices for aligning with customer expectations include:
- Mapping the customer journey to identify friction points and opportunities for delight
- Using real customer feedback, not just internal assumptions, to guide improvements
- Maintaining consistency in pricing, promotions, and service across channels
- Training staff — both online support teams and in-store associates — to resolve issues quickly and empathetically
- Regularly benchmarking against competitors and leaders in other industries, not just within retail
Shoppers expect the same level of service across all channels, and failing to meet this expectation is a major driver of churn.
This shift requires a cultural and operational change. Many shoppers perceive brands prioritize their own profits over customer needs, which highlights the urgency for change. Key actions for businesses include:
- Setting KPIs around customer outcomes (satisfaction, loyalty, lifetime value) rather than purely internal metrics like units sold or margin per transaction
- Empowering frontline teams to make decisions that benefit the customer without layers of approval
- Breaking down silos between marketing, operations, and customer service so everyone works toward the same experience goals
- Using customer data to inform decision-making at every level, ensuring strategies are grounded in real shopper behavior
- Celebrating and rewarding actions that improve customer experience, even if they don’t deliver immediate short-term gains
When leadership consistently prioritizes customer impact over internal convenience, the entire organization begins to operate with a true customer-first mindset.
Read the full report to understand:
- Why consumer trust will determine the winner of multiple battlegrounds across the customer journey - including CX
- How AI can help bridge the customer-centricity gap
- Which markets have the most (and least) demanding consumers in terms of expectations from retailers and brands
- How getting the basics right translates into practice
- The comparison of online vs. offline experiences across multiple factors.
The role of customer experience throughout the customer journey is just one of the crucial themes we investigate in our new report which covers insights and recommended actions spanning the end-to-end shopper journey. Click for all ten themes to champion the e-commerce and hybrid retail challenge, through unified customers journeys and touch points, frictionless shopping, integrated channels, meaningful innovation and connected commerce.
