In Retail, Customer Loyalty Is Won Through Consistency, Not Promotions

In retail, the language of competition is usually predictable: discounts, promotions, coupons, loyalty cards, average basket size.

But from a customer experience perspective, the issue runs deeper than that. QuestionPro’s Q1 2026 CX Benchmark report, which covers the US market, makes one thing clear about retail: customers aren’t just looking for low prices. They are looking for value, availability, speed, reliability and operational consistency.

Grocery Retail and Big Box Retail were among the sectors that rebounded in Q1 2026. Grocery Retail’s NPS stands at 35, and Big Box Retail’s is also 35. At the brand level, Costco is very strong in both categories: it leads Grocery with an NPS of 64 and also tops Big Box Retail with 59. (For CX Bulletin readers, this comes as no surprise ☺️)

The Costco lesson: Customers need to feel they’re on the winning side

Source: QuestionPro, Benchmarking CX Metrics by Industry and Brands in the U.S., Q1 2026

Costco gives customers an “I got a good deal” feeling. I explained this and much more in my earlier CX Bulletin article, The Wall Diplomatic Crises Couldn’t Break Through: Customer Loyalty, and in a Customer Institute webinar. When customers shop at Costco, they feel they are on the winning side of the transaction.

The QuestionPro report points in a similar direction. It notes that strong grocery brands stand out through their value proposition, product availability, operational execution and consistency in the shopping experience. Among lower-scoring brands, by contrast, inventory, store staff, price competitiveness and general shopping friction come to the fore.

The real test for retail in Türkiye: an experience without surprises

The retail market in Türkiye is shaped by high price sensitivity. That’s natural. But price alone does not create loyalty.

Customers want to find the product they’re looking for, skip the wait at checkout, see the same price on the receipt as on the shelf, receive their online orders in full and handle returns and exchanges without a hassle.

Source: QuestionPro, Benchmarking CX Metrics by Industry and Brands in the U.S., Q1 2026

Loyalty is won in the shopping journey, not on the loyalty card

As I said when writing about Walmart and Google’s agentic commerce move, shopping is no longer a passive process of searching for products. Customers describe what they need; if a brand can meet that need with the least effort, it wins.

That is where the biggest opportunity lies for retailers in Türkiye: not in running more promotions, but in smoothing out the small snags in the customer’s shopping journey. It may sound like I’m repeating myself, but I shared all the details in my article on Costco and in my keynote presentation. When you break a big strategy down into extremely simple yet genuinely effective tactics and apply them consistently, success becomes inevitable.

When you invest in your customers and your employees and give them reason to trust you, you can’t lose!