What matters to consumers in 2026: transparency + consistency

CX Insights

What matters to consumers in 2026?

A Capgemini Research Institute study of 12,000 consumers explores top value drivers (transparent pricing, consistent policies, and clear communications alongside quality), where consumers are spending vs. indulging, increased usage of AI in the shopping journey, and how human support drives loyalty.

Bar chart showing survey results on consumer awareness and use of Gen AI shopping tools in 2023, 2024, and 2025. Awareness and future use rise consistently over time, with the highest rates in 2025, highlighting the importance of transparency.

CX leaders: you may not be able to control pricing or packaging decisions that can impact perceived value, but consistent policies and clear communication is totally within your lane. Consumers are also more willing to adopt AI in their shopping (and customer service) experiences, but it’s clear that consumer trust hinges upon communication around AI usage.

New California law ensures customer service disclosures more plainly outlined

New year, new laws. Effective January 1, California Assembly Bill 578 mandates more consumer protections for food delivery services. It:

requires full cash refunds (including tips/taxes) for completely wrong/missing orders or issues where the customer is not at fault
mandates live customer support if an automated system cannot fulfill a request
prohibits using tips to offset base pay
ensures clear itemized breakdowns

The goal is to to stop practices like in-app credits for order failures.

The reduction of friction and stronger reliability may be what convinces consumers to try food delivery services (or try again).

For CX leaders at restaurant brands based in California, this spells out work for you. Make sure those customer service disclosures are up to date. Review your practices to ensure order correctness. If you’re using automation in your customer support, QA those customer journeys and workflows.

Why CX needs fewer dashboards and better decisions

Brian Riback, CMSWire Contributor of the Year who attended and covered our CX Now event last fall, feels like CX needs fewer dashboards and better decisions. His take? Leaders need to stop chasing trends and start proving measurable business impact. To him, clinging to vanity metrics like surface-level personalization is a sign that leaders don’t actually know what to do. It’s time to start being proactive - not reactive.

We agree - and we have a tool for that. If you haven’t already, check out Data Explorer which breaks past dashboards by surfacing deep analysis using data within Kustomer, and recommendations for what to do next. It helps you know what to do and why so you can start driving meaningful results for your team and organization.

Dutch Bros Coffee sharpens CX focus with new exec

Dutch Bros Coffee aims to open 1,000 new shops by 2029 and has brought on Jennifer Somers as the chief shops officer. Somers is the former chief operations officer at Cava and senior vice president of restaurant operations at Taco Bell. In addition to expanding the footprint, the chain expects to launch a hot food program.

With ambitious expansion goals, it’ll be interesting to see how the chain competes with the likes of Starbucks and Dunkin with new leadership.