THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION by 4xi Global

THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION: Why we are doubling down on people.

Elevate Experiences Everywhere.

CONTENTS

Experience (X) is ever evolving.

Emerging Trends to Watch

What You Need to Do Right Now

Long Term Big Bets: The Decade Ahead 2 | THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION

ADDITIONAL READING

AI in Hospitality

Balancing People and Technology pg. 7

Why does any of this matter?

How Evolving Experiences Can Help you act on This

Thank You!

THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION. | 3

EXPERIENCE (X) IS EVER EVOLVING. Hello Again, Friends. Last year when we published our CX Report, I told you that success would be built upon customer and employee experience. I stand by that sentiment, but the context continues to change as the market evolves. Consumer sentiment is at an all-time low right now. People are anxious, scrutinizing every dollar, and making more intentional decisions with discretionary spending. 4 | THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION

Two-thirds of consumers say they are cutting back on spending overall due to rising prices - and the two top ways they’re doing it: buying fewer items and delaying expensive purchases. -The Conference Board’s May 2026 Consumer Confidence Survey

This has us playing in a split market some refer to as the K-Shaped Economy. At the same time most are cutting back, luxury spending is booming. The top 10% of households will spend over $500 billion just on travel this year. Ultra premium hotels are full. Exclusive experiences book out immediately. Top tier theme parks are at capacity. First class cabins are pricey and full. And the best restaurants have waiting lists that feel like the go-go 80s on overdrive.

Unlike most, we aren’t afraid to admit when we got it wrong – because that happens when you step out on the ledge and share your expertise. So, let’s walk through the results, together.

So as the market splits, brands that invest in experience are seeing the impact on their top line revenue. Brands who discount the impact of experience (and their pricing) are struggling.

Being trapped in the middle is a tough place to be in today’s economy – it’s the third rail of CX. - Tony Johnson, CCXP When we published the inaugural Customer Experience (CX) Insights Report through our Evolving Experiences© practice, we made a promise: data without context is useless. We weren’t interested in collecting numbers for their own sake. We wanted to talk openly about where we were in the evolution of service and experience – and what it meant to you as a leader. With all things accountability matters – and even more so when you look in the mirror for an honest gut check. This is that check. We’re now far enough into 2026 to grade ourselves honestly. Some of what we predicted has played out almost exactly as the survey data suggested. Some of it moved faster than we expected. And a couple of things we got wrong.

What We Got Right EXPERIENCE WAS THE DIFFERENTIATOR The headline finding from the report was straightforward enough: 94% of respondents told us customer experience was very or extremely important when interacting with a brand, and over 90% said they’d consider switching after a single negative experience. At the time, some operators read those numbers as aspirational survey noise - the kind of thing people say but don’t do. They were wrong, and we said they would be. What we’ve watched in 2026 is the gap between stated preference and actual behavior close almost completely. Switching costs in most categories have collapsed. A bad experience no longer earns a brand a second chance - it earns a one-star review and a competitor’s mobile app download before the customer has left the parking lot. The 90% was spot on and will continue into the future.

THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION. | 5

This is indicative of the economy as it stands. Customers are not afraid to switch for better experiences and brands are making it easier to change. Look at hotels and airlines who offer status matching for those who worry about losing their loyalty points or status, but are dissatisfied with their current choice.

Customers want to feel the quality and value, along with respect for their time, with the brands they choose. That means putting real effort and training into consistency, attention to detail, and speed of service.

EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE IS THE SPARK PLUG

(or underweighted)

This is the prediction from our report that was the most ignored. Companies have short memories, and it is obvious that many learned very little from the pandemic. There was a moment in time when hospitality organizations were humbled by their employees as they left the industry in droves because they were often treated poorly and compensated below market. The more premier the organization the worse their behavior. Our report drew a direct line from how a company treats its team to how they treat the guests they serve. This continues to be true as organizations continue to compete for the best talent while slipping back into past bad habits. Remember that your customer experience will never be any better than your employee experience.

Where We Were Off THE SPEED OF AI ADOPTION We knew that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) were going to be an important part of the CX landscape, but they have found a level of adoption none of us could have predicted.

Amara’s Law: We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run. - Roy Amara, Stanford Computer scientist and Futurist

PERSONALIZATION, QUALITY, AND EASE BECAME EVEN MORE IMPORTANT The report identified personalization, quality, and ease of use as the trio sitting at the top of every customer’s mind. We argued these were becoming table stakes rather than differentiators. That has held. The brands winning in 2026 aren’t the ones doing something heroic - they’re the ones who made the basics frictionless and made the customer feel known. Reward points (76%) and ease of use still anchor loyalty programs, exactly as the data indicated. Companies have found that they must build this foundation of fundamentals before they can deliver premium experiences. Obituraty photo of Roy Amara, family 6 | THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION

By the time I wrote “AI in Hospitality: Balancing People and Technology” this spring, the conversation had completely changed. AI stopped being a thing operators were considering and became a thing they were drowning in. The real story of 2026 isn’t whether to adopt AI - it’s how many brands are bolting it onto broken journeys and under-trained teams and wondering why loyalty isn’t improving. As I put it then: AI layered on top of poor design doesn’t solve the problem, it amplifies it. The report was right that AI mattered. It was wrong about how loud, how fast, and how central the question of the human-in-the-loop would become.

COMMODITIZATION SQUEEZED THE MIDDLE MORE THAN ANTICIPATED The report framed national chains and local independents as two ecosystems, each with distinct strengths - chains with consistency and scale and locals with personalization and community. What we underweighted was the macro force bending the whole industry: the K-shaped economy. We described the contracting casual-dining middle (Red Lobster, TGI Fridays, and Outback rethinking real estate) but we need to truly understand the foundation of the issue. In a K-shaped economy, the top and the bottom both hold up while the middle hollows out. Affluent consumers keep trading up to more premiums experiences while budget-conscious consumers keep trading down to value - and the brands stuck in the undifferentiated middle (neither cheap enough nor special enough) get crushed from both sides. You either earn the trade-up with how you make people feel, or you race to the bottom on price. There is less and less room to be average.

ADDITIONAL READING

AI in Hospitality

Balancing People and Technology READ THE BLOG

THE OVERALL CONSUMER SURVEY FATIGUE We rightly told readers to gather feedback, layer it with their own Voice of the Customer data, including verbatim comments, and close the loop through intentional actions. Acting on what you learn from your customers, guests, and consumers is still a differentiator (as so few actually do anything about what they learn). What we badly underestimated was how exhausted people had already become with being asked. The long survey had died right in front of us. Request volume is up roughly 71% since 2020 while response rates have cratered - the workhorse email survey now only converts in the single digits to mid-teens, and plenty of programs have watched rates fall from 30% to 18% in six months without changing a thing. We treated “collect more feedback” as an unqualified good. In hindsight the advice should have been sharper: collect less, ask better, and prove you acted because the fastest way to kill your response rate is to ask and then do nothing with the answers. The survey becomes a broken promise, and customers stop bothering. This isn’t an academic point for us. It’s exactly why we built DiagnostiX around a 10-question pulse rather than a 40-question form. More on that coming up next.

THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION. | 7

EMERGING TRENDS TO WATCH Understanding what is happening in the market right now can lead to actionable results. Let’s talk about what is happening right now, in real time, in hospitality and experience. 8 | THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION

Self-Service + Pick Up Challenges. These models are partially collapsing in real time. After a decade of selling self-checkout and pick up as the inevitable future, some brands are rethinking the model. Shrink and theft are up and certain customer segments are pushing back against self-checkout as brands eliminated labor rather than looking for opportunities to improve the experience. Companies purported to add in self-check and pick up to free up employees for higher value tasks, but really just cut labor and left customers to fend for themselves. Many retail brands are working through the conundrum of customers who want app based pick up but lament the lack of connection when they use that model within stores.

Agentic AI moves from answering to acting. The first wave of AI handled questions. The next wave completes tasks - rebooking the flight, modifying the reservation, resolving the billing dispute end to end. This is potentially useful and genuinely dangerous. An AI agent that acts on a broken process doesn’t just frustrate one customer; it scales the failure. The companies who win will be the ones who fixed the underlying journey before they handed an AI agent the keys.

Experience and well-being start to merge. Customers are increasingly evaluating brands on how an interaction makes them feel (calmer, respected, less depleted) not just whether the transaction succeeded. The brands that reduce cognitive load and emotional friction, not just operational friction, will own a dimension of loyalty their competitors can’t see yet. As you will see later, this isn’t just a near-term consideration, but a long term play as well.

The line between digital and physical spaces continues to blur. Customers no longer separate these experiences - they expect one continuous relationship that remembers them across the app, the website, the call center, and the front door. Fragmentation between those channels is becoming the single most common source of preventable frustration, and unifying them is becoming the single biggest success.

Frontline anxiety becomes a leadership issue, not an HR footnote. As AI reshapes roles, teams are watching closely - and almost everyone is worried. The leaders who name that anxiety honestly, communicate early and often, and show their people where the irreplaceable human moments live, will retain talent. The ones who stay silent, or keep their teams working in ambiguity, will lose their best people. This is a culture challenge dressed up as a technology rollout.

Trust + transparency becomes the brand asset. As personalization deepens and AI mediates more interactions, how a brand handles data, transparency, and the human handoff becomes a differentiator in its own right. Loyalty is like trust - hard to cultivate and easy to lose. The brands that are explicit and honest about both will pull ahead of the ones treating it as fine print. THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION. | 9

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO RIGHT NOW Just knowing the landscape isn’t enough in today’s economy. Customer loyalty is built upon not just the fundamental understanding of what they need but executing and delivering it when they want it. This is what you need to start doing right now – as soon as tomorrow morning.

Lead Your Team Through the Evolution

Embrace Hyper-Personalization

3 4 5 10 | THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION

As AI reshapes your business, your teams are watching – and worried about their future. Communicate intentionally and be honest about where the irreplaceable human moments live in your business.

Shift from generic service and opaque understanding toward events and experiences tailored to specific audience segments, allowing for customization within each offer. show your guests that you “get them.”

Understand Your Customer’s Journey How do they interact with your brand, where are their pain points, what is causing friction, and what problems do they need you to solve for them?

Create omni-channel customer continuity. Ensure customer data and intent history travel seamlessly across every digital and offline channel so customers never have to repeat themselves.

Adopt Agentic Commerce Transition AI tools from passive advisors to active resolution engines capable of executing complex changes, bookings, and customer requests instantly on first contact.

Align Your Values Build long-term advocacy by actively embedding shared consumer priorities (such as sustainability, localism, and wellness) directly into the experience.

Evolve the Third Place

Double Down on the Front Line

Elevate Surprise + Delight

Treat physical venues as community spaces designed for deep emotional connection, interactive sensory engagement, and mood enhancement, rather than mere transactional volume.

Reframe frontline hospitality and retail employees as story tellers and trust builders. Ensure that even in environments where pick up and self service are present that employees still find ways to connect, even if just with a simple smile and a hello.

Prioritize unexpected, personalized gestures (like anniversary rewards or milestone recognitions) to create moments of WOW. Even as you double down on the fundamentals work harder than ever to bring a sense of surprise. Ensure a strong hand off or pick up experience where mobile ordering is in place.

Ethical + Radical Transparency Clearly communicate exactly what value the customer receives when sharing their data and they can trust their data + privacy are safe with you.

THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION. | 11

LONG TERM BIG BETS: THE DECADE AHEAD Predicting what is going to happen next month is hard enough, but we thought we’d swing for the fences and talk about what we are looking at beyond the immediate horizon. EVERYTHING IS ABOUT HOSPITALITY Today organizations are using hospitality as a buzzword to denote they deliver a warmer, more personalized experience. In the next decade organizations will embrace the human connection that traditional hospitality brands have always prioritized. Creating a sense of belonging and personalization will be table stakes as people look for organizations who specialize in “placemaking.” Offline will become the definition of luxury where connectivity, belonging, storytelling, and screen free environments become the premium standard.

better paid, and more specialized: emotional intelligence, creativity, storytelling, problemsolving, and genuine guest connection. Technology won’t replace hospitality. It will redefine it by clearing away everything that isn’t hospitality so people can focus on the part only people can do.

THE COMPETITION FOR TALENT BECOMES AN ALL-OUT WAR This is the bet I feel most strongly about, because math is already visible. Travel and hospitality are projected to need over 90 million additional workers by 2035, while only about one in ten young people would actively choose hospitality as a career today. That gap doesn’t close with better recruiting ads. It closes only if the industry fundamentally reframes frontline service as a respected, well-paid, leadership-track profession, including development and a path for future growth.

TECHNOLOGY AND PEOPLE FIND BALANCE The consensus across serious industry analysis is striking and counterintuitive: as automation handles nearly every operational and routine layer, the human role doesn’t disappear, it becomes even more crucial. By 2035, the prevailing view is that frontline roles will be fewer but far more skilled,

12 | THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION

CX PROFESSIONALS MOVE Customer Experience professionals are continuing to navigate their way within organizations and that has brought varying levels of success and adoption. CX is still emerging but over the next decade this discipline must show its value - and I believe it will. There will be ebbs and flows along the way where some organizations will double down and others will significantly shrink the function (likely by integrating into other areas of the organization). Ultimately this will lead to a refined approach where CX professionals finally address ROI pragmatically by acting rather

than simply reporting. The best hospitality organizations will cement this role in the c-suite with professionals adept at silo busting and scaling across functions. In other words, CX truly lives everywhere in the business model.

DIGITAL CURATION BECOMES KEY If today’s customers are algorithmically predisposed, the 2035 version is more total: AI agents will increasingly shop, book, and choose on the customer’s behalf. That raises a genuinely new strategic question: how do you build a brand experience compelling enough that both a human and their AI agents choose you? Experience design starts to include designing for the machines that humans use to help simplify their lives. Brand love still matters, but it now has to survive a technology filter.

EXPERIENCE AND WELL-BEING BLEND INTO ONE EXPECTATION This is the quiet one, and it may be the biggest. Over the next decade, customers will increasingly judge a brand not just on whether the transaction succeeded but on how the interaction made them feel. Did it bring a sense of calm and make them feel more “like themselves?” As daily life gets noisier and more automated, the brands that actively reduce cognitive load and emotional friction will cultivate a dimension of loyalty their competitors can’t even see yet. Wellness stops being a spa amenity and becomes a design principle for the entire experience. The hospitality industry, which has always understood that how you make someone feel is the product, will lead here. This will require a new level of integration and intentionality.

The hospitality industry is positioned to lead in a world where how you make someone feel is the core product.

THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION. | 13

WHY DOES ANY OF THIS MATTER? It’s tempting to read a piece like this as a scorecard points won, points lost, a few trends to file away for the next planning meeting. But that misses the whole point. The reason we grade our own predictions in public isn’t vanity or even credibility. It’s that experience is the last real differentiator left, and getting it right is no longer optional. Product can be copied. Price can be matched. Technology can be bought by anyone with a budget. The one thing a competitor cannot clone is how you make people feel and in a market where 90% of customers will walk after a single bad experience, that feeling is the business. Everything in this report points back to a handful of truths that don’t change no matter how the technology shifts underneath them: The basics still win. Quality, speed, ease, and a human who cares beat every shiny object. Technology amplifies a great experience and exposes a broken one. Great tech doesn’t fix bad fundamentals. EX is CX. You cannot give what you don't have. Engaged, well-led, well-trained teams are the only reliable way to deliver loyalty building experiences. Treat your team the way you want them to treat your customers. Experience is designed, not accidental. The brands at the top of every survey didn't get lucky. They built it on purpose, measured it honestly, and acted on what they learned. People are the differentiators. The further automation goes, the more valuable the human moments become. Bet there and double down often. 14 | THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION

Here’s what’s at stake if you get it wrong: in a K-shaped economy, there is no safe middle anymore. You either earn the trade-up with an experience customers will pay for and rave about, or you slide toward a commodity fight on price you cannot win. The brands that treat experience as a strategic discipline - funded, measured, owned at all levels - will pull away. The ones that treat it as a slogan they revisit every January will quietly lose the customers they assumed were loyal, and they’ll blame the economy when it happens. So why does any of this matter? Because experience is the growth strategy now. It’s not a department, not a campaign, not a nice-to-have once the “real” priorities are handled. The data is clear that competing on experience is the business strategy that has legs for the next quarter, year, and decade because it keeps people top of mind and center stage. Don’t ignore it, embrace it.

THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION. | 15

HOW EVOLVING EXPERIENCES CAN HELP YOU ACT ON THIS: Everything in this report points to the same conclusion: experience is the differentiator, and it has to be built on purpose. That’s the entire reason our Evolving Experiences© practice exists. The philosophy is simple, and it’s the line I come back to in every engagement: when you place people at the center of everything you do, the most amazing things are possible. We don’t treat customer experience and employee experience as separate initiatives, because they aren’t. EX fuels CX. How you engage and equip your team is how they deliver your brand promise at the moment of truth.

When you place people at the center of everything you do, the most amazing things are possible.

HERE’S HOW WE HELP: Employee Experience Strategy & Frontline Leadership. We build the foundation that lets your team deliver excellence - engagement, development, recognition, and the tools and empowerment frontline people need to act. We do this through employee listening, leadership development, and strategic advising. Customer Experience + Hospitality Strategy. We craft CX strategy that turns scattered, accidental interactions into engaging, consistent experiences that build loyalty and advocacy. Journey mapping, friction removal, personalization that feels intentional rather than intrusive, and a clear articulation of where you sit on the experiential scale. Tools, Training & Measurement. Strategy without execution is just a slide deck. We create the customized playbooks, training materials, and measurement systems that let you deploy, scale, and sustain — including Elevate©, our app that gathers real-time data and insights from your operations to give you visibility like never before. What ties it together is our practitioner’s love of action. We’ve stood on the floor, run the multi-unit operations, and lived the gap between a beautiful strategy and a busy Tuesday shift where 3 people called out sick. We don’t hand you a framework and wish you luck - we help you build the engine, train the team, and measure what matters until the experience becomes part of your DNA and helps you build

unshakable customer loyalty.

16 | THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION

How are we putting this to work at 4xi? I have spent most of this article telling you what is happening in the market. It would feel a little hollow to wrap up without telling you what we are actually doing about it. Because at 4xi, we do not just write reports and hope for the best. We build tools, we run programs, and we sit across the table from operators trying to solve real problems with real budgets. Here is a snapshot of how the Evolving Experiences© practice is showing up for clients right now. DiagnostiX: Turning sentiment into signal. One of the most common questions I get is, “How do I actually know what my customers think without spending six figures and six months on a research project, or an army of mystery shoppers that have limited success?” That question is exactly why we built DiagnostiX, our next-generation tool to help you take the mystery out of mystery shopping.

DiagnostIX gives operators 24/7, 365-day access to enterprise-grade HealthCheck reports through a quick ten-question sentiment survey. It covers guest and employee sentiment, pricing and accessibility, social media impact, competitive positioning, and brand experience and growth. It is fast, it is affordable, and most importantly, it tells you not just where you stand, but why, and what to do about it.

You can take the HealthCheck and explore the full platform at www.4xi360.com/diagnostix.

THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION. | 17

18 | THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION

THANK YOU

for taking this journey with us. We believe every moment is a chance to change someone’s day for the better – and to create relationships that stand the test of time. This is true of your customers, your clients, and your teams. I spend most of my weeks on the road training teams in hospitality, assessing operational performance, leading workshops, and developing leaders – and those are connections I value. People are my business and I’m lucky to be able to spend time with global brands, small businesses, chambers of commerce, and hospitality organizations to improve the experiences they provide to their customers. Never underestimate the power of a moment – just one moment – in the lives of others. Be curious. Be a problem solver. And above all, remember to keep people at the center of everything you do, because that’s where the most amazing things are possible. Until next time friends,

Tony Johnson, CCXP Managing Partner & Chief Experience Officer 4xi Global Consulting | Evolving Experiences© tonyjohnson@4xiconsulting.com | (606) 356-7447 | www.4xiconsulting.com

THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION. | 19

Inspire Your Team, Evolve Your Business Tony Johnson is an award-winning speaker specializing in customer experience, employee engagement, and leadership development. He has decades of executive leadership experience, developing all levels of employees and leaders in a variety of industries such as education, aviation, financial services, technology, hospitality, restaurants, food service, travel, and tourism. Tony captures his audience with storytelling, humor, and instant credibility that comes from years of operational experience. His practical approach brings a unique flavor to his speaking, coaching, and workshops. His training sessions are entertaining and relatable for all levels of your organization, from font line associates to executive leadership.

Tony can help you and your business build customer loyalty, retain top talent, and grow your sales. This is an investment in your success.

Connect with Tony linkedin.com/in/tony-johnson-ccxp/ 4xiconsulting.com/evolvingexperiences

Keynotes

Training Events

These 45 – 60-minute powerhouse talks will inspire your team and are perfect to open or close your event.

These engaging sessions will help your team grow, develop, and improve performance.

Igniting Hospitality

Hospitality Fundamentals

Put people at the center of everything you do and understand the daily tactics to create a culture of service and care.

Your team will learn to deliver world class guest experiences and hospitality in this interactive, impactful training session. This course will cover service behaviors, hospitality fundamentals, service recovery, empathy, and delivering consistent quality.

The Future of Experience

Session Length: 1-hour and 2-hour sessions available

A powerful call to action to continuously evolve your customer service and deliver a personalized, premium experience.

Evolving Your Leadership

Crafting Moments that Matter Every guest interaction is a chance to change their day for the better – and that means attention to every detail and every moment.

Winning the War for Talent Create a community that attracts the very best talent and engages them in meaningful ways to retain your top performers.

Develop your managers into leaders during this interactive and engaging development workshop. Leaders will learn how to select talent, build teams, engage employees, communicate expectations, manage performance, and sustain a culture of service + hospitality.

Session length: 2-hour, half day, full-day, and multiday sessions available

Customer Understanding and Journey Mapping

Coaching Academy

Understanding your customers will help you retain your current business and grow your sales. In this session you will analyze your customer feedback, review their journey in your business, and create a plan to keep your most valuable customers.

Choose from 3-month, 6-month, or 12-month programs.

Personalized one-on-one coaching sessions to grow leadership capacity and presence - perfect for leaders who are taking on a new or expanded role. Each program is personalized exclusively for the participant.

Session Length: 8 hours

Tony has worked with companies in every sector – from small businesses and start-ups to global brands.

Tony was at the heart of our transformation, and was able to articulate the importance of customer service at all levels. He is one of the most engaging and dynamic speakers I've known. Healthcare, Vice President

20 | THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION

Sodexo • Aramark • Goldman Sachs • University of Florida • Oakland A’s • Edmonton Oilers San Jose Sharks • Christus Health • Cleveland Clinic • Baylor Scott & White Health • Dell • 3M Eli Lilly • University of Virginia • Anaheim Convention Center • Phoenix Convention Center

When I brought Tony in to talk to my team, I was amazed by his customer focus and passion to delight guests. When we applied his customer service techniques, we were able to really amp up and improve our customer service.

Tony goes well beyond theory – he teaches the HOW behind the WHAT of powerful customer service in today's economy. By using his techniques and strategies we have seen a measurable improvement in our customer satisfaction scores.

Higher Education, Chief Hospitality Officer

Owner, Multi-Unit Restaurant System

Internal Friction Becomes an External Problem. When teams lack clarity, consistency, or the right tools, the impact doesn’t stay behind the scenes. It shows up in customer experiences, loyalty, and business performance.

Find the Friction. Elevate the Experience. Start the Conversation hello@4xiconsulting.com 4xiconsulting.com

FOOD is your PASSION,

Helping you

CRAFT

memorable experiences is ours.

Connect with us!

4xiconsulting.com/foodcraft

THE EXPERIENCE EVOLUTION. | 21

MAKE MEMORABLE MOMENTS. Evolving the Experience, one moment at a time.

4xi helps organizations close the gap between intended and actual experiences. Through strategy, operational insight, hospitality expertise, training, and measurement, we identify friction and create better outcomes for people, customers, and performance. Connect with Us! www.4xiconsulting.com