July 22, 2025 • 6 mins
Live from NRF APAC, The Retail Podcast brings you exclusive access to Twilio’s 2025 State of Customer Engagement Report. This isn’t theory—it’s what leading global brands are actually doing on the ground.
We unpack:
Why 82% of brands think they personalize well—but only 16% of customers agree
How AI is redefining CX across channels
What customer data unification looks like in diverse APAC markets
Why privacy and consent are the new battlegrounds for loyalty
And what brands can do today to close the perception gap
💡 If you’re a retail or CX leader, this is your field guide for 2025 customer expectations.
🎧 Subscribe to The Retail Podcast for weekly episodes from the frontlines of global retail.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Let's be honest with you. I need to know you, Alex.
I need to know who you are. I need to know what you do with
our brand, what you care about, what you want, and then help you
actually understand how we can help you in that process.
And AI is allowing us to really kind of scale that out.
(00:27):
Hello and welcome back to the Retail Podcast live from the
show floor NRF a pack. Now you may recognise the
branding Twilio. I interviewed them last year.
I'm back again for more. I'm here with Ben.
Ben, I hear there's some new research, so I'd love to know
what you do. It's Willie.
Oh, and anything can tell us about this new research?
Brilliant. Thank you, Alex.
(00:47):
So my name is Ben Chandler and Ilead the solution Engineering
team focus more on customer data.
So we really care about how do our customers really understand
who their customers are and helpthem really drive those
relationships. So let me just talk a little bit
about the research we have aboutto release the State of Customer
Engagement report for 2025. This is a big piece of research
(01:11):
that we do every single year really to understand how
customers are engaging, you know, what are they expecting
from businesses and really, you know, how can we help?
Yeah. Fantastic.
So what's your data set that youuse in terms of the research you
who are you interviewing and what are they telling you and
what are you saying? Well, there's, there's two kind
of groups if you like. We're going out to businesses,
(01:31):
our customers to better understand, you know, what are
they doing? What are they're, you know, what
are they seeing in the market? What are the trends they're
following? And then on the other side,
we're going out to broader, a broader customer base trying to
understand from their perspective are the what the
initiatives that businesses are going on, are they actually
resonating? Got you.
So I noticed that in terms of you've got this sort of
philosophy about why brands mustshift to a channel first,
(01:56):
customer first strategy actuallyif you can expand on that for
us. Look, I think that's, I think
that's a really interesting point.
Businesses typically operate thinking about the channels.
So how do I build a world class e-mail programme?
How do I build a world class website or mobile app?
But that doesn't take the customer to the centre.
(02:17):
Customers don't care about the channels, they just want to be
able to get to a resolution. Yeah.
They want to be able to do theirresearch, they want to be able
to find their products and they then want to be able to check
out and buy what they need. So really is that shift.
But like to understand the customers journey now traverses
all of these different channels.How can we have the right
information, the right engagement in the right channel
(02:39):
at the right time? And like obviously AI is having
such a massive impact on all elements and all technology
providers. I was just wondering how how do
you see AI redefining personalization from your
perspective? So I just want to take a quick
step back because AI is a, is a future lens that we're putting
(02:59):
over how we engage with customers.
But from our research, from the State of customer engagement
report, we've seen that 82% of businesses are out there
thinking they're doing a good job, but they're really trying
to personalise customer experience.
Yeah. But on the flip side, customers,
only 16% of them think they're doing an excellent job.
There's a big gap that we've gotto fill.
(03:20):
Yeah. Now 60% of customers are willing
to spend more with brands. Yeah, in actual fat, 48% will
make repeats purchases if you personalise effectively, right.
So there's this big gap in termsof perception, and there's a big
win out there. So how's II helping?
Yeah, well, look, let's be honest with you.
I need to know you, Alex. I need to know who you are.
(03:42):
I need to know what you do with our brands, what you care about,
what you want, and then help youactually understand how we can
help you in that process. And AI is allowing us to really
kind of scale that out. I got you.
So look, one thing I would say is that there is three things
that brands are looking at with AI.
They're looking at actually understanding the customer
journey, interrogating that, understanding the pain points.
(04:04):
Yeah, they're investing into solving customer problems.
So when you think about that, that's a support lens and issue
resolution. And then the last 1 is really
sort of analysing what happens after that point.
So how we can really, you know, improve over time?
I got you. If we just take a regional
perspective in the AIPAC area, Iwas which is just so massive.
(04:25):
So even saying the AIPAC area. Feels wrong, right?
Because like 3 billion people roughly, but how, how do you see
organisations in the region unifying customer data and to
sort of drive that deeper engagement?
So I, I think that piece is, is interesting.
As you talked about, Asia is such a diverse region with
(04:47):
different countries, different nuances, different approaches.
Realistically, their focus is actually who is my customer, not
just who's my custom from a loyalty lens, who's my customer
from an online or offline commerce lens.
But how can I bring all of that together to really understand
who that person is? Yeah.
And then enrich that with predictions, with
(05:08):
recommendations, and then driving that into those channels
that we talked about. Now from an AIPAC perspective,
on the customer side, we're talking about 3/4 of customers
really wanting to have a human like experience.
They don't care that there's AI powering under the hood.
They want that human experience.And about half want to have that
(05:29):
escalation. They want to know that if
they're dealing with AI that they can then escalate that to
a, you know, a human if they getstuck.
So that's the lens I put over it.
That's fantastic. Final question, yes, you must
have met a lot of customers coming onto the stand.
What's top of mind? I'm just curious.
Again, we talk about this as being an APAC event, there's
(05:51):
lots of customers coming from different regions.
So and some of the customer, theconversations are around privacy
and consent. As legislation is changing my
home country, Australia is aboutto seem greater change in
privacy legislation. We're also seeing like what does
what, how do we actually utiliseAI?
We didn't some really interesting and innovative
(06:12):
things in the voice space and bringing that AI conversation
and engagement to whatever channel we're in.
Yeah. So AI is definitely how do we
leverage that, but it still comes back to clean, consistent
complete data. So we still understand talking
about how do I collect data fromwhere customers are, how do I
activate that across all of my channels.
(06:33):
Those are the the trends that I'm seeing.
That's brilliant, Ben. Thank you so much.
Really appreciate. It really appreciate it.
Thanks, Alex.
Let's be honest with you. I need to know you, Alex.
I need to know who you are. I need to know what you do with
our brand, what you care about, what you want, and then help you
actually understand how we can help you in that process.
And AI is allowing us to really kind of scale that out.
(00:27):
Hello and welcome back to the Retail Podcast live from the
show floor NRF a pack. Now you may recognise the
branding Twilio. I interviewed them last year.
I'm back again for more. I'm here with Ben.
Ben, I hear there's some new research, so I'd love to know
what you do. It's Willie.
Oh, and anything can tell us about this new research?
Brilliant. Thank you, Alex.
(00:47):
So my name is Ben Chandler and Ilead the solution Engineering
team focus more on customer data.
So we really care about how do our customers really understand
who their customers are and helpthem really drive those
relationships. So let me just talk a little bit
about the research we have aboutto release the State of Customer
Engagement report for 2025. This is a big piece of research
(01:11):
that we do every single year really to understand how
customers are engaging, you know, what are they expecting
from businesses and really, you know, how can we help?
Yeah. Fantastic.
So what's your data set that youuse in terms of the research you
who are you interviewing and what are they telling you and
what are you saying? Well, there's, there's two kind
of groups if you like. We're going out to businesses,
(01:31):
our customers to better understand, you know, what are
they doing? What are they're, you know, what
are they seeing in the market? What are the trends they're
following? And then on the other side,
we're going out to broader, a broader customer base trying to
understand from their perspective are the what the
initiatives that businesses are going on, are they actually
resonating? Got you.
So I noticed that in terms of you've got this sort of
philosophy about why brands mustshift to a channel first,
(01:56):
customer first strategy actuallyif you can expand on that for
us. Look, I think that's, I think
that's a really interesting point.
Businesses typically operate thinking about the channels.
So how do I build a world class e-mail programme?
How do I build a world class website or mobile app?
But that doesn't take the customer to the centre.
(02:17):
Customers don't care about the channels, they just want to be
able to get to a resolution. Yeah.
They want to be able to do theirresearch, they want to be able
to find their products and they then want to be able to check
out and buy what they need. So really is that shift.
But like to understand the customers journey now traverses
all of these different channels.How can we have the right
information, the right engagement in the right channel
(02:39):
at the right time? And like obviously AI is having
such a massive impact on all elements and all technology
providers. I was just wondering how how do
you see AI redefining personalization from your
perspective? So I just want to take a quick
step back because AI is a, is a future lens that we're putting
(02:59):
over how we engage with customers.
But from our research, from the State of customer engagement
report, we've seen that 82% of businesses are out there
thinking they're doing a good job, but they're really trying
to personalise customer experience.
Yeah. But on the flip side, customers,
only 16% of them think they're doing an excellent job.
There's a big gap that we've gotto fill.
(03:20):
Yeah. Now 60% of customers are willing
to spend more with brands. Yeah, in actual fat, 48% will
make repeats purchases if you personalise effectively, right.
So there's this big gap in termsof perception, and there's a big
win out there. So how's II helping?
Yeah, well, look, let's be honest with you.
I need to know you, Alex. I need to know who you are.
(03:42):
I need to know what you do with our brands, what you care about,
what you want, and then help youactually understand how we can
help you in that process. And AI is allowing us to really
kind of scale that out. I got you.
So look, one thing I would say is that there is three things
that brands are looking at with AI.
They're looking at actually understanding the customer
journey, interrogating that, understanding the pain points.
(04:04):
Yeah, they're investing into solving customer problems.
So when you think about that, that's a support lens and issue
resolution. And then the last 1 is really
sort of analysing what happens after that point.
So how we can really, you know, improve over time?
I got you. If we just take a regional
perspective in the AIPAC area, Iwas which is just so massive.
(04:25):
So even saying the AIPAC area. Feels wrong, right?
Because like 3 billion people roughly, but how, how do you see
organisations in the region unifying customer data and to
sort of drive that deeper engagement?
So I, I think that piece is, is interesting.
As you talked about, Asia is such a diverse region with
(04:47):
different countries, different nuances, different approaches.
Realistically, their focus is actually who is my customer, not
just who's my custom from a loyalty lens, who's my customer
from an online or offline commerce lens.
But how can I bring all of that together to really understand
who that person is? Yeah.
And then enrich that with predictions, with
(05:08):
recommendations, and then driving that into those channels
that we talked about. Now from an AIPAC perspective,
on the customer side, we're talking about 3/4 of customers
really wanting to have a human like experience.
They don't care that there's AI powering under the hood.
They want that human experience.And about half want to have that
(05:29):
escalation. They want to know that if
they're dealing with AI that they can then escalate that to
a, you know, a human if they getstuck.
So that's the lens I put over it.
That's fantastic. Final question, yes, you must
have met a lot of customers coming onto the stand.
What's top of mind? I'm just curious.
Again, we talk about this as being an APAC event, there's
(05:51):
lots of customers coming from different regions.
So and some of the customer, theconversations are around privacy
and consent. As legislation is changing my
home country, Australia is aboutto seem greater change in
privacy legislation. We're also seeing like what does
what, how do we actually utiliseAI?
We didn't some really interesting and innovative
(06:12):
things in the voice space and bringing that AI conversation
and engagement to whatever channel we're in.
Yeah. So AI is definitely how do we
leverage that, but it still comes back to clean, consistent
complete data. So we still understand talking
about how do I collect data fromwhere customers are, how do I
activate that across all of my channels.
(06:33):
Those are the the trends that I'm seeing.
That's brilliant, Ben. Thank you so much.
Really appreciate. It really appreciate it.
Thanks, Alex.
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