Qualtrics Report: A Glance at 5 Key Consumer Trends That Will Define Consumer Behavior in 2025

Success in an overly competitive market requires understanding what drives consumer loyalty and what leads to churn. Due to the ever-evolving consumer behavior, businesses must reset their thinking and focus on what truly matters to consumers. To that end, cloud-based experience management platform Qualtrics has released a report that highlights the 5 major consumer trends that will define consumer behavior in 2025. The report is based on responses from 23,730 consumers surveyed across 23 countries.

Let’s take a look at each of these five trends.

1. Heightened Expectations May Dent Loyalty

While consumers have always wanted brands to go the extra mile, it’s even more important today. The report found that poor buying experiences in today’s competitive landscape may result in reduced spending for 53% of the respondents. This number is 2.7% higher than that in 2024.

Even moving from a one or two-star experience to a three-star experience can increase the chances of a purchase by 68%. Moreover, the same experiential shift may also boost their likelihood of recommending by a whopping 97%.

Thus, brands must deliver on their promises because that’s what their consumers expect them to do. Meeting those climbing expectations will help brands do what many other companies are struggling to do– build brand loyalty!

2. Fundamentals Are Key

Communication, service delivery, and ensuring the accuracy of the information you provide play key roles in fostering consumers’ trust.

The likelihood to trust highly correlates with both increased likelihood to repurchase (0.62) and recommend (0.79), while consumers cite that their ability to trust the information you provide them is their number one priority. Also, consumers cite communication issues as the second most frequent cause of poor experiences- just behind the core fundamentals of service delivery.

3. Feedback Collection to Become Critical

The way brands collect and analyze feedback is changing rapidly. Only 16% of consumers use social media to air their grievances, which is down by 6.9% from 2021. Also, only 22% of consumers ever tend to write something on a third-party review site, which is again down by 4.2% from 2021.

Thus, most consumers aren’t telling brands about their poor experiences with them, which makes it increasingly challenging for companies to figure out how to enhance their overall buying experience. This means that companies need to cast a wider net for customer feedback, which can help them listen on a more interconnected level.

4. AI Hype Paving The Way for Skepticism

While businesses might be buying into the AI hype to tell their potential consumers about how their latest products or services are AI-powered, consumers are slowly beginning to drift apart.

According to the report, only one in four respondents said that they trust companies to use AI responsibly. Also, there’s a growing concern among 50% of the respondents that AI-powered tools will come in between customers and their ability to speak to a real human being. From misuse of personal data and poor communication to quality to fear of loss of jobs and mistrust of the provided information, companies need to address and resolve plenty of issues related to the use of AI in their operations.

5. The Growing Role of Privacy and Personalization

While consumers love personalized experiences, many of them don’t trust companies with their data that can help brands deliver tailored experiences.

This is reflected in the report’s findings, which show that while 64% of consumers want to buy from brands offering tailored experiences, 53% of respondents also said they were worried about the privacy of their personal information. Thus, brands need to walk a tightrope between personalization and privacy.

Bottom Line

Businesses today need to build the one thing that matters the most– trust. It plays an instrumental role in everything from online shopping habits to consumer beliefs. Also, it’s a great way of ensuring repeat purchases in a market where switching from one brand to another has never been easier. Keeping a tab on emerging consumer trends and acting upon them can go a long way in building trust.

Ultimately, trust drives consumer confidence, which influences their willingness to spend with you – rather than a competitor.

To delve deeper into the findings of the report, download the full report by clicking here.

We'll be back with more insightful reports for you. Till then, stay tuned!