As customer experience (CX) becomes a defining driver of trust and growth, the Havas CX Network has released the 7th edition of the X Index, a global study examining the widening gap between what brands promise and what consumers actually experience. Based on responses from 59,000 consumers across eight markets, the report evaluates CX performance across 580 brands globally, including 47 brands in India, spanning automotive, hospitality, technology, banking, insurance, fashion and luxury, e-retail, and financial services.
Who performed the best?
One of the clearest patterns in this year’s X Index is that experience leadership is no longer dictated by legacy alone. In the automotive category, both legacy and newer brands are performing strongly. Tata Motors continues to be one of the strongest performers, maintaining consistency across product reliability and service systems. At the same time, newer entrant Kia has overperformed by closely matching and in some cases exceeding customer expectations. The report notes that Tata Motors and Kia are equally close to closing the experience gap, reinforcing automotive as one of the most mature CX categories.
Hospitality remains another high-performing category. Brands such as The Oberoi Group and Hyatt have managed to close the CX gap more effectively than peers, driven by people-first philosophies and consistently high service standards.
In technology, expectations are among the highest and the hardest to meet. While no brand has fully closed the gap, Apple comes closest, continuing to set benchmarks through seamless phygital experiences and ecosystem-led design. Apple’s India Store app, which allows customers to pick up their journey exactly where they left off in-store or online, is cited as a standout example of frictionless CX.
The X Index underlines that consistency across touchpoints is now a stronger differentiator than category advantage. Zerodha is highlighted as a brand that has consistently ranked among the top performers, having built a comprehensive ecosystem that supports investors across learning, tracking, and execution. In insurance, a traditionally low-frequency but high-stress category, most brands struggle to meet expectations. However, Max Life Insurance stands out as the only brand to meet expectations decisively, driven by clarity, reassurance, and emotionally responsive service at critical moments.
Categories under pressure
The report identifies banking, insurance, and fashion & luxury as the least-performing categories overall, each for different reasons. Banking struggles with maintaining consistency at scale, where personal relationships often matter more than innovation. Insurance faces trust deficits driven by anxiety-led interactions.
The surprise underperformer this year is fashion and luxury. Despite being emotion-heavy and aspiration-led categories, none of the brands studied managed to meet or exceed expectations. The report attributes this to fragmented online-offline strategies, rising benchmarks set by boutique retail experiences, and increasingly volatile consumer expectations.
Following the report launch, David Shulman, Global CEO, Havas CX Network, spoke to IMPACT, sharing his perspective on how brands must align communication with delivery, reduce CX debt, and design experiences that evolve as fast as consumer expectations. Watch the video below:
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