The 6 Pillars of Customer Experience: What KPMG's Global CX Study Reveals

KPMG's Global Customer Experience Excellence (CEE) 2025-2026 report is the world's most comprehensive CX benchmark. Based on 80,594 interviews across 2,684 brands in 16 countries, it provides a uniquely data-driven picture of what drives customer loyalty, NPS, and commercial success.

In this article, we break down the report's six pillars, their relative weight, and what it means for your CX strategy.

The Six Pillars and Their Weight

KPMG's framework identifies six universal drivers of customer experience. Here is their relative importance as drivers of NPS and loyalty respectively:

The key takeaway: Personalization and Integrity are the strongest drivers of commercial outcomes combined.

Integrity: The Strongest NPS Driver (19.0%)

Integrity is about honesty, transparency, and fair treatment. It is trust in practice. Companies that score high on Integrity:

• Have clear, transparent pricing and terms
• Deliver on their promises, consistently
• Treat customers fairly, even when problems arise
• Act ethically and take responsibility for mistakes

What it means for B2B: In complex B2B relationships, where contracts are large and decisions involve many stakeholders, trust is not just nice-to-have. It is the foundation of the entire business relationship. According to the report, Integrity is the single strongest predictor of CX excellence.

Personalization: The Strongest Loyalty Driver (20.3%)

Personalization drives over one-fifth of all customer loyalty. It's not just about using a customer's name in an email. It's about demonstrating understanding of the customer's specific situation and adapting the experience accordingly.

In the 2025-2026 report, KPMG emphasizes that personalization requires:

• A unified customer view across front, middle, and back office
• AI-powered analysis that identifies individual needs and preferences
• Proactive action based on customer context, not reactive response

What it means for B2B: The average B2B purchase involves 13 stakeholders. Personalization must therefore work across roles and touchpoints, not just for the primary contact person.

Expectations: The Gap Has Never Been Smaller (16.9% NPS / 16.3% Loyalty)

The Expectations pillar is about managing, meeting, and exceeding customer expectations. KPMG notes that the gap between Expectations and Integrity has never been smaller (just 0.2%), indicating that expectations management is rising in importance.

Companies that master this pillar:

• Set clear expectations from the start
• Communicate proactively about changes and delays
• Deliver consistently across channels and touchpoints

Time & Effort: The Fastest-Growing Driver (15.2% NPS / 16.9% Loyalty)

Time & Effort shows the largest increase in importance (+0.4% year-over-year). Customers want frictionless experiences. The report shows that:

• Retail is the sector performing best on Time & Effort, a full 2.4% above the market average
• Sectors that lag behind (utilities, logistics) are approximately 5% below the norm on this pillar
• Digitalization and AI are the primary drivers of improvement

What it means for CX programmes: Your CX programme itself should score high on Time & Effort. If the feedback process is heavy for customers or internal follow-up requires manual work, you're undermining your own efforts.

Resolution: From Detractors to Promoters (15.2% NPS / 14.7% Loyalty)

Resolution is about what happens when things go wrong. KPMG's data shows that effective resolution can turn detractors into promoters. The best companies treat service recovery as a designed experience, not an ad hoc process.

In Australia, Resolution increased by 3.5% year-over-year, the second-largest improvement across all pillars.

Close the Loop is the core: Systematic follow-up on feedback, especially from dissatisfied customers, is the most direct path to strengthening the Resolution pillar.

Empathy: The Most Underrated Pillar (15.0% NPS / 13.6% Loyalty)

Empathy is often the missing pillar in underperforming sectors, yet one of the strongest drivers of perceived value and long-term connection. In Australia, Empathy showed the largest improvement of all pillars: +4%.

KPMG emphasizes that AI will have increasing influence on the Empathy pillar. As AI interactions replace human ones, it becomes critical to ensure the empathetic dimension is not lost.

Sector Scores: Where Does Your Industry Stand?

Banking ranks 4th globally with a score of 7.52 and improved 0.7% year-over-year. The primary drivers were Empathy (+1.4%) and Expectations (+1.3%). The financial sector sits 0.4% above the market average.

Total Experience: The Next Evolution

KPMG introduces Total Experience as the overarching framework: the integration of customer, employee, partner, and digital touchpoints into one coherent whole. It is built on five principles:

1. Customer centricity — design around customer needs, values, and goals
2. Data-driven insights — turn data into actionable intelligence
3. Seamless integration — unify data, systems, channels, and journeys
4. Employee empowerment — equip teams with tools, insight, and autonomy
5. Technology enablement — make technology the invisible backbone

What Does This Mean for Your CX Strategy?

1. Measure the pillars that drive your business

Don't rely on NPS as a standalone number. Understand what drives your score by measuring the underlying dimensions.

2. Prioritize Integrity and Personalization

These two pillars together drive approximately 39% of total loyalty. Invest in trust (transparency, consistency) and personalization (data-driven, AI-supported).

3. Reduce friction in your own CX programme

Your feedback process should itself score high on Time & Effort. Automate the administrative work, and focus your time on action and advisory.

4. Build Close the Loop as a core discipline

Resolution requires systematic follow-up. Design your processes so dissatisfied customers are always contacted, and feedback leads to concrete improvements.

5. Don't underestimate empathy

Especially in B2B, where relationships are long-term and complex, the empathetic dimension is critical for customer retention.

How SurveyGauge Helps

SurveyGauge's model of Platform + Administration + Advisory is designed to deliver on exactly the dimensions KPMG highlights:

• Integrity: Our advisors help you identify and close trust gaps across the customer journey
• Personalization: AI-powered analysis identifies individual customer patterns and preferences
• Time & Effort: Our administration model removes friction so your team focuses on action
• Resolution: Automated Close the Loop flows ensure no dissatisfied customer goes unnoticed
• Empathy: Strategic sparring ensures the human dimension remains central

Source: KPMG Global Customer Experience Excellence 2025-2026, "Total Experience: Redefining excellence in the age of agentic AI"