Why Indian consumers are losing patience with brands’ everyday experience failures

New Delhi: Havas CX India’s latest X Index 2025 India Report has put a sharp number on what many marketers sense anecdotally: Indian consumers are no longer swayed by brand claims alone, and they are quickly moving away from brands that fail in small, repeated moments across the journey.

The seventh edition of Havas’ proprietary customer experience (CX) barometer flags a widening gap between what brands promise and what customers actually experience. The report refers to this gap as “CX Debt,” the accumulated cost of repeated experience failures, such as delayed responses, unclear communication, broken journeys, and inconsistent service. It warns that customers often do not complain. They simply shift their loyalty.

The 2025 edition is based on an evaluation of 580 brands across eight markets, with 59,000 consumers surveyed globally. 

In India, the report covers 47 brands across eight categories, measuring CX across 19 metrics mapped to four pillars: Functional, Emotional, Personal, and Collective. The scorecard also tracks touchpoints across the customer journey, from social media interactions to after-sales service.

Tata brands dominate the top, but the bigger story is the CX gap

While Tata Motors ranks as the No. 1 brand for the second year in a row, the report’s larger message is about consistency and delivery, not just leadership at the top of the table. Tata Motors scores 97.3 on the index, followed by Tata CLiQ Luxury at 88.6 and OnePlus at 82.8. Taj is fourth at 81.6, with Mahindra at 79.2.

The rest of the top 10 includes Zerodha (74.7), Apple (69.2), JBL (60.8), Hyatt (60.2) and HDFC (48.6). 

Two other Tata Group brands, Tata CLiQ Luxury and Taj, also feature in the top 10, underlining the role of consistent experience delivery in high-consideration categories.

At a category level, the report identifies Automotive, Hospitality and Technology as the best-performing categories this year, each scoring around 8.4 on a 1–10 scale, driven by what the report calls tighter control over the trust-to-delivery gap.

In contrast, Banking, Fashion and Luxury, and Insurance are flagged among the least-performing categories, where service variability and friction can quickly turn into CX Debt.

“Don’t just understand me. Prove you can serve me reliably.”

One of the report’s central conclusions is a shift in what consumers value. Brands have spent the last few years chasing personalisation, but Havas CX India says the expectation has moved to something more basic and more unforgiving: operational reliability.

The report frames the new consumer demand in one line: “Don’t just understand me. Prove that you can serve me reliably.”

It adds that Indian consumers feel the experience gap more sharply because they are exposed to best-in-class execution across categories, but day-to-day delivery remains uneven. In effect, consumers compare brands not within a category, but against the best experience they have had anywhere.

The report attributes the widening CX gap to three forces. First, disruption resets benchmarks, where one brand’s “instant gratification” becomes the new standard across categories. Second, promises without action weaken trust, as consumers increasingly judge behaviour over messaging. Third, evolving needs outpace static experiences, with time, certainty and ease now carrying a higher weight than even a year ago.

A “Proof Stack” to reduce CX Debt

To help brands close the gap, the report introduces a framework it calls the “Proof Stack”, which lays out how customers validate whether a brand can be trusted.

The three layers are: Proof of seamless experience, where consistency across touchpoints reinforces trust; proof of emotion, where trust is built not through storytelling alone but by removing doubt, effort and delay at critical moments; and proof of performance, where operational excellence and technology-led delivery become the real differentiator.

David Shulman, Global CEO, Havas CX Network, said, “From a global perspective, the 2025 X Index confirms a universal truth: customer experience is no longer shaped by what brands say, but by what they consistently do. Across markets, we see trust being earned, or lost, through everyday interactions. Brands that align their promise with genuine customer needs reduce experience debt and build durable, long-term value.”

Rana Barua, Group CEO, Havas India, Southeast Asia & North Asia (Japan & South Korea), said, “India is moving at extraordinary speed, and consumer expectations are evolving just as fast. Indian consumers are increasingly demanding consistency and looking out for brands that simplify their experience. The X Index 2025 clearly shows that experience is now a strategic differentiator, one that directly impacts relevance, preference, and growth in this market.”

Manas Lahiri, Chief Growth Officer, Havas India, added, “For brands looking to scale in India, growth today is inseparable from experience. What this report highlights is that sustainable growth comes from closing the CX gap by creating seamless customer lifecycle value management across touchpoints and proving value at every interaction. Brands that do this well will be the closest to the consumers and lead the next phase of growth.”

Why some sectors win on trust-to-delivery alignment

The category deep dives show how experience debt builds differently depending on category dynamics.

In Automotive, the report says the category leads because it operates with structural discipline and mature service ecosystems that keep performance within a narrow band across brands. 

Tata Motors is called out for outperforming the category average across all four pillars, backed by initiatives such as Customer Care Mahotsav for commercial vehicle customers and its Tata.ev push, including MegaChargers and an ambition to scale to 400,000 charging points by 2027.

In Hospitality, the report notes that Taj operates under the heaviest expectation load but still holds delivery close, reflecting systems designed to perform at scale. Oberoi is cited for near-perfect alignment between expectations and experience. The report also flags that gaps widen quickly where service routines appear inconsistent.

In Technology, Apple remains the benchmark-setter, with expectations running even higher than delivery, a typical pressure point for category leaders. OnePlus is flagged for a sharper decline between expectations and delivery, suggesting specific CX gaps that matter in India, including communication and emotional experience. Brands like JBL are positioned as more symmetrical performers, reflecting dependable delivery.

For Banking, the report’s message is blunt: trust depends on “uneventful, predictable daily execution”. HDFC and Standard Chartered are highlighted for stronger alignment, while other brands see dips linked to emotional or personal factors. In Insurance, the report stresses that the category is defined by a few high-stress moments such as onboarding and claims, where clarity and communication decide whether trust holds or breaks.

What the report is really telling marketers

Beyond the rankings, the X Index 2025 India Report is positioning CX Debt as a boardroom metric, not a service issue. The report’s warning is that Indian customers are quicker to adopt new expectations and even quicker to abandon old tolerances. For brands, that changes the cost of inconsistency. Every micro-miss adds up, and the market is increasingly rewarding brands that do fewer things wrong, more consistently, across the full journey.