Switzerland Customer Experience Excellence report 2025/26

Customer experience in Switzerland is changing fast. For a long time, Swiss brands could win with reliability, precision and trust. Those basics still matter – but they are no longer enough.

Today’s Swiss consumer evaluates brands not only on outcomes, but on the overall quality of the experience and how interactions translate into personal experiences. Our research shows that Swiss customer behavior is increasingly shaped by fairness, transparency and emotional connection.

Customers now expect experiences that are:

personal
easy
consistent across channels
ethical and transparent

At the same time, a new technology wave is reshaping how experiences are delivered. Agentic AI can independently sense, reason and act. This allows organizations to respond faster, personalize journeys in real time and orchestrate experiences using shared customer data – without losing the human touch.

This rapid shift makes one question critical: how do customers experience these changes today? To answer this, we are launching the first local Customer Experience Excellence (CEE) report 2025 in Switzerland. The study is based on more than 8,700 consumer evaluations across 34 brands and connects Swiss insights to the global benchmark, which includes over 80,000 interviews across 16 countries and regions.

The report shows how Swiss brands perform on customer experience excellence and highlights what sets the top performers apart.

Customer Experience Excellence

Get insights from Swiss consumers including a list of the top five leading brands in Switzerland.

Download report

A new era of customer experience in Switzerland

Key forces reshaping Swiss customer expectations

The report shows three forces driving change:

Cost of living and value perceptions
As everyday expenses rise, customers become more sensitive to price fairness and transparency.

ESG expectations
People want purpose with proof, not slogans.

AI concerns
Customers want speed, but they also worry about privacy, accuracy and losing human connection.

From reliability to relevance: what has changed?

Swiss consumers still value “getting things right“ – meaning reliable, accurate and predictable service. But they also want brands to understand them and remove friction. When an experience feels generic, slow or unclear, trust drops quickly – even if the product or service itself is objectively high quality.

What matters is how the experience performs in the real world, and how it makes the customer feel.

Total Experience – redefining CX strategy

Improving single touchpoints is no longer enough. Leading organizations are moving toward Total Experience – an approach that connects customer journeys (CX), employee interactions (EX) and partner touchpoints across digital and physical channels, supported by the right technology.

This shift reframes the customer journey end to end and embeds customer centricity into the operating model, ensuring a consistent and intuitive user experience across channels.

The goal

Make the experience feel seamless, even if many systems and teams sit behind it.

The five princliples of Total Experience

Total Experience is built on five principles:

Customer centricity
Design around real needs and goals.
Data-driven insights
Turn signals into better decisions and personalization.
Seamless integration
Connect channels, systems and partners end-to-end.
Employee empowerment
Give teams tools, insights and autonomy.
Technology enablement
Make technology the invisible backbone of great experience.

The role of agentic AI in orchestrating CX

Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that can sense what is happening, decide what to do and take action independently, within clear boundaries set by the organization.

In a Total Experience context, agentic AI strengthens experience delivery in two ways:

As an orchestrator: it coordinates steps across teams and systems so the customer doesn’t feel handovers or complexity.

As a participant: it can answer questions, recommend actions or complete transactions – using shared data and knowledge.

The Six Pillars of Customer Experience Excellence

Customers evaluate their experiences with brands through six pillars. Together, they form the Customer Experience Excellence (CEE) score.

Personalization: tailoring with impact

Personalization strongly influences loyalty and advocacy. Customers value experiences that are relevant and context-aware – not just targeted marketing.
Time and effort: efficiency is the baseline

Low-effort experiences are expected. If customers must repeat themselves, chase updates or navigate friction, satisfaction drops fast.
Expectations: delivering consistently

This pillar is a key driver of value perception. Customers judge fairness based on whether brands deliver what they promised – clearly, consistently and on time.
Integrity: earning trust through transparency

Integrity is a major predictor of loyalty and recommendation. Clear policies and transparent pricing build trust – especially in industries where customers feel fees and terms are complex.
Resolution: turning problems into loyalty

When something goes wrong, resolution matters more than ever. Fast and fair fixes can turn detractors into promoters – especially when service recovery is treated as a designed experience.
Empathy: the emotional differentiator

Empathy is often the missing pillar in underperforming sectors. Yet it is one of the strongest drivers of perceived value and long-term connection.

What drives customer loyalty in Switzerland

Swiss customer loyalty is generally strong – but brand loyalty alone does not separate leaders from laggards. The real difference is brand advocacy, measured through metrics such as net promoter score (NPS), which reflects customers’ willingness to recommend a brand.

Brands that consistently deliver on expectations turn satisfied customers into loyal customers who actively recommend them.

Top-performing brands and their success traits

The strongest performers combine:

frictionless core journeys
reliable service recovery
transparent policies
visible proof of ESG in the experience
moments that feel human, not automated

Switzerland Customer Experience Excellence 2025/26

The full ranking and brand results are available in our report.

Download report

Passives vs. promoters: the hidden challenge

Across many industries, a large share of customers are “passives”: satisfied, but not enthusiastic. Unresolved pain points quietly erode advocacy and, over time, affect the bottom line.

ESG, trust and advocacy – the Swiss way

ESG can be a differentiator – but only when the basics work. Customers reward brands that make ESG visible, credible and clearly based on customer values. These signals increasingly influence purchasing decisions, especially in Switzerland.

Key opportunities by sector

Financial Services

Strength is often built on trust, security and stability. The opportunity is to strengthen advocacy through clearer value signals, visible ESG and more personalized advice.

Travel & Logistics

Disruptions are the stress test. The opportunity is proactive communication, real-time updates and faster recovery – without handovers or repetition.

Retail & FMCG

Convenience is strong, but value perception and emotional connection can vary. The opportunity is to improve fairness perception and create more human moments in both digital and physical experiences.

Telecom & Fast Food

These sectors often struggle with empathy and value perception. The opportunity is radical transparency, simpler policies and better “human cues” across digital and in-person touchpoints.

Strategic recommendations for Swiss brands

Based on the Swiss results and the global benchmark, we recommend the following high-impact actions:

Systematically create advocacy

Convert passives into promoters with small “signature moments” and faster fixes

Professionalize service recovery

Treat service recovery as a product, not a back-office task.

Reduce complexity to build trust

Simplify pricing and policies to increase trust and perceived value.

Embed ESG into the experience

Make ESG visible in journeys, not just in messaging.

Institutionalize transparency

Increase transparency in digital, with real-time status and clear escalation paths.

Humanize digital at scale

Move from functional to emotional CX by humanizing digital journeys through human-centric design.

How KPMG helps you design Total Experience

KPMG supports organizations across the full Total Experience journey – from strategy to execution. Our approach combines deep user research with experience-led operating models and redesigned customer support, enabling consistent, human and intelligent experiences.

Define the Total Experience vision and measurable outcomes.

Map value streams and the moments that matter most.

Reimagine operating models to reduce handovers and friction.

Deploy trusted AI with governance, transparency and human oversight.

Empower employees with tools, insights and autonomy.

Measure Total Experience value with dashboards across CX, EX and operations.

article

Learn how leading Swiss brands are creating trust, loyalty and advocacy through a positive customer experience powered by Total Experience and agentic AI.

Learn more

How do Swiss customers really experience your brand?