Who Owns Customer Experience in Retail

In retail, customer experience drives loyalty, yet most organizations cannot pinpoint a single person responsible for it. According to Forrester, many companies admit they lack a clear CX owner. Instead, marketing, IT, digital, and operations each manage their own slice of the customer journey. For example, chatbots fall under digital communications, phone support under operations, and interactive voice response systems (IVRs) under IT. This fragmented approach leaves no one accountable for the full picture.

Customers feel the impact first. Fragmented ownership disrupts data flow, creates inconsistent service, and erodes trust. Even the best technology cannot close the gap without someone guiding the overall experience. To deliver consistent, connected experiences that protect customer loyalty, CX must have a single accountable owner.

The Cost of Fragmentation

Retailers operate in a world of thin margins, tight timelines, and high expectations. Every customer interaction has financial weight. According to Qualtrics, poor experiences will cost businesses $3.8 trillion in 2025, excluding the hidden costs of brand damage and customer churn.

Fragmented ownership often reveals itself at the worst moments. During peak seasons, disconnected systems break under pressure. Long wait times, chatbot failures, or mismatched information can drive customers to competitors. Through proactive assurance testing, retailers can avoid significant revenue loss to catch failures before customers notice.

When no one owns the whole journey, minor issues snowball; each team can see a symptom, but no one owns the full view. A minor outage or mismatch in customer data can quickly turn into a lost sale and a damaged relationship. In retail, trust is fragile. Fragmentation doesn’t just slow responses; it chips away at the connection between brand and customer, one broken interaction at a time.

What Unified CX Ownership Looks Like

Unified CX ownership doesn't mean creating another department. It means establishing one accountable function that connects people, processes and platforms around shared goals. This role aligns every team with a single understanding of what customers experience at each touchpoint.

A unified owner ensures data flows freely between systems and that continuous testing happens across all channels. Chatbots, IVRs, and live-agent interactions should feel consistent and connected. This structure doesn't replace marketing or IT. It strengthens them by giving every function visibility into how their work affects the customer. Marketing still crafts messaging and IT still manages infrastructure, but one owner ensures cohesion and accountability.

How Retailers Can Make it Work

Retailers can begin by mapping who owns each part of CX today. Identify gaps and overlaps across support, digital, and store operations. Build a cross-functional team that meets regularly to align key performance indicators, share performance data, and review insights together.

Adopt a single dashboard that tracks customer interactions across all channels year-round, not just during holidays or peak seasons. Consider appointing an executive-level leader, such as a chief customer officer, to ensure accountability at the highest level.

Early results often include faster incident response, fewer escalations, more consistent messaging, and more substantial employee alignment. When every team shares visibility but one owner drives accountability, customers have better experiences.

A Future Shaped by Agentic AI

Forrester’s research shows that a lack of accountability blocks progress. Retailers that unify leadership will adapt most effectively to rapid changes in technology and customer behavior.

As agentic AI, chatbots and automation reshape the shopping journey, having a single accountable owner ensures innovation improves the experience rather than fragmenting it further. Retailers earn customer trust through consistency, and they build consistency by taking ownership. By defining CX leadership as a clear role, they protect their brand and strengthen the customer relationships that drive long-term success.

Agentic AI is already enabling tangible progress for retailers today. It supports real-time decision-making to shifting conditions in stores, supply chains, and online channels. It automates repetitive tasks, freeing teams to focus on higher-value priorities. And by unifying data and intelligence across channels, inventory, pricing, and engagement, agentic AI helps retailers operate with greater agility and competitiveness — turning every interaction into an opportunity to reinforce trust and loyalty.

Amitha Pulijala is the chief product officer of Cyara, an AI-led CX transformation platform provider.