Data, AI & the Customer Experience Gap - Rewriting the Marketing Playbook

S2E4 The Truth About Retail Customer Experience - What Adobe + Incisiv Discovered

In this episode of The Retail Razor: Data Blades, Ricardo and Casey kick off a three‑part series with Dave Weinand, Chief Customer Officer at Incisiv, to unpack the latest Adobe + Incisiv State of Customer Experience in Retail and Consumer Goods research. Consumer expectations are rising faster than most retail marketing teams can respond, and the gap between what shoppers want and what brands deliver is widening.

Dave breaks down:

• why customer experience continues to lag despite massive investment,
• why traditional marketing playbooks are failing, and
• how CMOs are shifting toward revenue‑driven metrics like CLV and loyalty.

The conversation explores the operational pressures shaping retail marketing, including frictionless checkout, page speed, unified data, and the rise of technical marketers. Plus, a preview of episodes to come diving into how Generative AI and agentic commerce will change the game for marketers.

This episode is a must‑listen for retail leaders navigating the future of customer experience, AI‑driven marketing, and the organizational changes required to keep up with today’s customer experience.

What We Cover

• Why only 12% of retailers personalize more than 75% of the journey
• How consumer expectations are outpacing retail marketing execution
• Why friction kills: checkout steps, page speed, and new KPI dashboards
• The shift from vanity metrics to revenue‑driven KPIs
• How marketing now owns more of the customer experience
• The rise of technical marketers and data‑driven roles
• Why unified data is the foundation for AI readiness
• Best Buy & Sephora as examples of customer‑journey‑based org models

Resource Links
State of Personalized Experience in Consumer Goods in an AI-Driven World - Report
https://business.adobe.com/resources/sdk/state-of-cx-consumer-goods.html

State of Customer Experience in Retail in an AI-Driven World - Report
https://business.adobe.com/resources/sdk/state-of-cx-retail.html

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