Every Brand Deserves Great CX

What do a soybean farmer in Nebraska, a gamer in Manila, a daily news subscriber in Lebanon and a teenage makeup influencer in San Francisco all have in common?

They want a seamless, memorable customer experience with your brand. Even if they never heard of the term CX, they know what good CX feels like. And when it’s done right, they’ll return to it again and again. The future belongs to brands that unify physical and digital touchpoints into emotionally intelligent journeys.

We may be from three very different parts of the world – the United States, the Middle East and the Philippines, but all three of us are focused on helping our brand partners deliver the very best customer experience possible.

The Cost of Fragmentation

Customer experience is where a brand’s promise is either proven or broken. When the experience is fragmented, the trust that holds the relationship together begins to come apart. A single disconnected moment can undo years of investment. Customers might forgive a delay or a small mistake, but they rarely forget the feeling of being dismissed or ignored. That is when loyalty fades.

It happens more often than brands are willing to admit. A clever ad sends you to a landing page that offers nothing new. An app remembers what you bought, yet the person serving you acts like you are a stranger. A personalised message lands in your inbox, but it is the same message everyone else received. These are not minor gaps. They are signs that the brand is not in control of its own experience.

The automotive world provides a clear example. You configure your ideal car online, book a test drive, and build anticipation for the day you visit the dealership. When you arrive, the salesperson has no record of what you built or why you are there. In that moment, the connection is lost. The excitement turns into doubt. Trust is harder to rebuild than it is to break.

This challenge was highlighted at Cannes Lions 2025 during the CMO Insider breakfast, where leaders from Mercedes-Benz, e.l.f. Beauty, Citi, and Salesforce shared how AI is changing customer experience. They emphasised the importance of authenticity, agility, and trust at every touchpoint, whether through apps, social media platforms, or immersive experiences. AI can help personalise and streamline, but the technology is still evolving. Brands that chase efficiency without protecting the emotional connection risk creating journeys that look good on paper but feel empty to the customer.

The root cause is often structural. Many companies still view CX as an operational function rather than a strategic driver. Customers do not care which team is responsible for the interaction. They care how the interaction feels. One wrong moment can send them to a competitor. According to PwC, one in three customers will walk away from a brand they love after just one poor experience. That is not a statistic to file away. It is a direct threat to growth.

What the Winners Do Differently

Brands who are winning in CX, and who won at Cannes this year, are reframing customer experience by recognising that emotional connection and operational efficiency are not opposing goals, but complementary forces. Today’s leading brands are blending the two by designing journeys that are both seamless and deeply human. This year, one presentation, in particular, captivated me with its bold, honest approach to transforming CX in beauty retail.

Sephora argued that many brands invest deeply in building an emotional narrative -focusing on inclusivity, empowerment, joy, confidence, or self-expression. The 'brand' is crafted to evoke specific feelings and aspirations in customers. However, if the actual customer experience (CX)—whether online, in-store, or through service channels - is designed purely for operational efficiency (speed, automation, cost-cutting, rigid processes), then those emotional promises fall flat. The brand’s emotional storytelling becomes 'an academic exercise': something discussed in boardrooms and brand books, but not actually felt by customers.

Sephora emphasised that if a beauty brand claims to be about confidence and self-expression but then offers a cold, rushed, or impersonal shopping experience, customers notice the gap. The feelings the brand aspires to create aren’t delivered in reality.

CX teams should be asking 'how does this feel' versus just 'how does this 'work?'

In contrast, Sephora’s strategy is to align both brand and experience: not just efficient checkouts or product recommendations, but warm, personalized interactions, inclusive environments, and moments that genuinely delight and empower shoppers. When brand and experience are in sync, the brand’s values come alive—building deeper, long-lasting connections.

A brand’s promise only matters if it’s consistently delivered at every touchpoint. Efficiency is important, but not at the expense of the emotional moments that turn customers into fans. As Sephora put it, 'Unshittifying CX' means closing this gap - so the brand’s feelings are truly felt in every experience.

Here is one of my favourite slides from 'Unshittifying CX' that compares traditional CX with Sephora’s CX focus. Full disclosure, it also features one of my favourite former Old Navy brand partners, Brent Mitchell. Hi Brent!

Redefining Loyalty and Advocacy

When we define CX as something that endures beyond the purchase of a product or service, we can see it as a way of authentically delivering on a brand promise. It also represents an ongoing relationship with a customer rather than just a temporary transaction.

Loyalty is no longer about points, but about preference.

One of the cases celebrated at Cannes 2025 took loyalty to a logical extreme, and that was the Ikea 'Hidden Tags' campaign from Portugal. To counter the widely held misperception that Ikea furniture doesn’t last, the brand used the ‘made on’ code hidden in every item and challenged customers to see for themselves how old the longest used item had been around. It led to a vivid demonstration of the longevity of the products and the brand’s willingness to be transparent about the data involved. It also provided a fun interactive platform for people.

Experiences that feel made for you are the ones you return to.

In Vaseline Verified the experience for the brand’s influencers was tailored for them by the brand. So rather than the brand asking what influencers could do for it, they went about seeing what they could do for influencers. Many of them were advocating some strange uses for the product. The occasions where the claim made for the product was supportable meant the creator was rewarded with a ‘verified’ badge by the brand. This led to more attention and traffic. What’s more, the end-users of the product were either directed to or protected from usage for the product that actually worked. CX in a direct sense.

The rise of emotionally intelligent CX as a differentiator.

When the brand makes a connection with users through audio, as the Play the Dew campaign does with gamers, based on the singular connection between the multiple sounds of gaming (from road, to fighting, to horror) with the word “Dew,” the brand is able to create unique experiences. In this case, including custom-made mobile games made exclusively for fans, as well as providing platforms for streamers, and branded content. All grounded on a single creative platform: fuel for gaming. This allows the brand to go beyond the confines of product functionality and into the larger space of fan passions…the emotional sweet spot.

The CX Playbook: From Silos to Symphonies

Your customer experience is your brand story, told in real time. Each interaction, whether online or in-store, seamlessly weaves together to form a cohesive and memorable narrative.

The best customer experiences occur when the entire organisation shares a unified understanding of the customer. That requires removing the walls between marketing, product, service, and technology. If each team uses its version of the truth, the result will be fragmented.

While the CMO Insider breakfast at Cannes Lions showcased the promise of AI in creating more personalised and efficient experiences, what was missing was a focus on connecting those moments from start to finish. Without orchestration, the best tools will still produce isolated wins rather than a journey people value and remember.

Owning customer data is the foundation. First-party data is more than a compliance requirement; it is the clearest view of who your customers are, how they behave, and what they value. Controlling this data removes dependency on outside platforms. It enables brands to act in real-time, make informed decisions, and maintain a strong customer relationship.

AI can optimise processes, but creativity ensures they connect on a human level. Data shows what is happening, creativity shapes how it should feel. Together, they can produce experiences that are consistent, personal, and worth returning to.

Every touchpoint tells the customer something about the brand. The first welcome, the confirmation message, and even the process for resolving a problem. These moments should be designed with care and emotion.

A simple way to assess readiness is to ask three questions. Do we truly understand what it's like to be our customer? Are all teams working from the same customer truth? Are we using first-party data to respond quickly while staying true to the brand?

If the answer is yes, the organisation is no longer delivering in pieces. It is creating a performance that customers want to experience again and again.