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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About Our Guest
Dave Weinand, https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-weinand-a62538/
Chief Customer Officer, Incisiv, https://www.incisiv.com
David Weinand is the Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer of Incisiv, Inc. – a research and insights firm focused on helping retailers and brands navigate digital transformation across online, store, and supply chain functions. Weinand leads customer success for the firm and manages research and benchmarking projects with its largest clients. In addition, he manages relationships with the retail community. Prior to that, Weinand was SVP of the technology division of EnsembleIQ and led strategic direction and sales programming of their four media properties, including Hospitality Technology, RIS News, Apparel, and Consumer Goods Technology. In addition, Weinand launched and built the EIQ technology group’s research division - EKN Research.

Chapters

(00:00) Teaser

(00:27) Show Intro

(02:52) Welcome Dave Weinand!

(04:26) Why Personalization Still Lags Behind Rising Customer Expectations

(07:48) Friction Kills: Checkout Steps, Page Speed & the New KPI Dashboard

(09:11) From Vanity Metrics to Revenue: CLV, Loyalty & Board-Level Accountability

(11:08) Marketing Owns More of the Journey: Org Structure, New Skills & Technical Marketers

(15:11) Is Consumer Behavior Outpacing Execution? Agile Testing, Autonomy & Speed

(17:13) Why Customer-Journey Org Models Are Hard (and How Best Buy & Sephora Did It)

(20:01) Data Readiness Before AI Readiness: Unifying Silos as the Catalyst

(23:02) Wrap-Up, Where to Find the Study & Subscribe/Follow

(23:42) Show Close

About your Hosts
Helping you cut through the clutter in retail data insights:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail and AGI, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Management, Careers, and Transformation, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Agentic AI and Digital Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft

Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! 

Music

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Tech Lore from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.