6 Hot Takes That Will Define CX & Retention in 2025

Hello, Friends—

I owe you an apology: I vanished. 

After 132 straight weeks of writing this newsie, I just… stopped.

No heads-up, no “BRB,” nothing. Truth is, I hit a wall.

This newsletter started back when I was at Jones Road. People kept asking to “pick my brain,” but my introverted side and calendar couldn’t handle an endless stream of calls. So, I tried writing instead.

I’d grab a coffee, settle into a cozy corner, and geek out about CX and Retention to whoever cared enough to read.

Fast-forward to 15,000+ subscribers, and something I once loved started feeling like another box on a never-ending to-do list. So I took a break. 

I hopped on a flight to Buenos Aires—shoutout to points and miles gods—where we spent a week at the Park Hyatt, and Noah got his first taste of lie-flat seats. (I have no idea how I’ll ever convince him to fly economy again.)

Anyway, I’m back now, feeling human again. As we head into 2025, I’m giving myself permission to let this newsletter wander a bit, though CX and Retention will always be front and center. If that means pulling in a few guest lecturer experts, I’m here for it.

Speaking of which, I’m planning a little mini-series on email and SMS flows—the creative art and science behind setting them up, nurturing them, and keeping them fresh. 

I’ll chat with some of the brightest (and kindest) retention folks out there, digging into their flows and strategies.

If you know someone (maybe you?) at the top of their retention and lifecycle game, add their name and LinkedIn profile to the form below. I’d love to highlight them and share their genius with the rest of us.

Two Question Form Here

Alright, enough about me. Let’s do this.

6 Hot Takes That Will Define CX & Retention in 2025.

This week’s newsie is brought to you by Tapcart—the platform helping brands crush mobile commerce and set the stage for stronger CX and retention in 2025.

2025 Mobile Commerce Trends You Can’t Afford to Miss

Mobile is no longer a “nice-to-have”—it’s a core driver of loyalty, repeat purchases, and overall revenue growth. Savvy brands are getting ahead by meeting customers where they already live: on their phones.

Push Notifications: Your Direct Line to Loyalty

Brands like LSKD use Tapcart’s push notifications to engage customers instantly, driving urgency and reengagement:

• 156% higher CVR
• 218% higher revenue per session

By sending personalized sale alerts and product updates, LSKD keeps their best customers active, happy, and primed for repeat purchases—all without extra marketing costs.

App Exclusives: Reward Your Most Dedicated Fans

Aviator Nation saw a 35% higher revenue per session in their mobile app compared to their website. Why? VIP perks, early launches, and exclusive product drops. When your most loyal fans feel special, they spend more and stay longer—simple as that.

The Takeaway? In 2025, successful retention strategies won’t just be about email blasts and generic website experiences. Mobile is quickly becoming the ultimate loyalty playground. Push notifications create immediate connections, while app-only perks spark genuine excitement and community.

If you want to future-proof your brand, Tapcart can help. They’ll show you how to make the most of mobile in a way that feels authentic to your customers, driving better engagement and real results.

• Request a Demo to see Tapcart’s platform in action.
• Get the CX Guide for expert-backed insights into elevating your mobile experience.

Make 2025 your breakout year—go beyond the inbox, meet customers on their phones, and watch your retention metrics skyrocket.

REQUEST A DEMO

1: AI Will Make Human Empathy 10x More Powerful

AI is everywhere and already smart enough to handle a nice chunk of routine support. Chatbots, sentiment analyzers, auto-routing—stuff we once thought would require a human brain is now being done in milliseconds by lines of code.

The more the world relies on AI, the more actual human empathy stands out.  If every store has a chatbot handling the basics, the brand that invests in staff who genuinely listen—and respond with that warm, human touch—instantly rises above the noise.

I am old enough to remember when Discover built ad campaigns around 'Talk to a Real Person' while everyone else was shoving you through endless automated menus.

And how Zappos made a name for itself by having actual humans—like real, living, breathing people—who could chat about shoe returns and your dog’s haircut, all in one phone call.

Once you let bots handle 80% of your support traffic, you can reallocate your human agents to where it counts: the messy, high-stakes conversations that can’t be solved with a macro. Show your customers you actually give a damn.

Embrace AI as your grunt-work sidekick. Let it handle the easy stuff and gather context, then hand off the nuanced conversations to a well-trained human who can actually add real personality and empathy. 

2. The Year Your Tech Stack Shrinks (Finally)

Nobody wants to stare at a bloated P&L full of app subscriptions—especially when so many tools these days offer the same features.

The truth is, juggling 35 different apps to run your store has become a damn headache. Why pay for a loyalty app, a returns app, a reviews app, and a separate SMS app when a single platform could cover 80% of your needs?

It’s not that specialization is dead—there will always be room for niche tools with advanced functionality. But simplicity is winning for most brands I have spoken to in the last year. Consolidated platforms mean fewer bills and one central support person who can help with almost all your issues.

On top of that, keeping your customer info centralized makes personalization easier without paying thousands of dollars for a CDP on top of all of the tools you have. You’re not running around trying to reconcile five different dashboards to answer a basic question.

That said, not all consolidated platforms are created equal. Some might do a decent job at everything but won’t excel at the specific features you rely on—like highly advanced returns logic or super-detailed loyalty tiers.

IMHO, here is the move:

1. Know Your Non-Negotiables. If your business hinges on a feature, don’t compromise just yet.
2. Stay Curious. As tools evolve, what was once a feature only one player had might soon become standard across the board.

By the end of 2025, I expect more brands to ditch this cuckoo app overload and opt for platforms that keep things simple, streamlined, and cost-effective—without sacrificing essentials.

3: Shopify’s Empire Strikes Back (Again)

Shopify’s playing a long game, and it’s starting to look like they’re betting big on trust and customer experience.

Shopify isn’t just chasing mom-and-pop shops anymore. They’re actively wooing enterprise brands. Currently, only 3% of Shopify merchants pull in over $1M annually. By the end of 2025, expect that percentage to grow as Shopify makes itself irresistible to larger players and continues to go upmarket. 

Take their recent moves to curb sneaky auto opt-ins for apps like memberships and shipping protection. Shopify doesn’t want customers to feel duped, and this is just the beginning. 

AS AN EXAMPLE:

4: Growth Marketers, Meet Your New Boss—AI

If you think growth folks are completely safe because “AI can’t be a CrEaTiVe StRaTeGiSt,” let me burst that bubble. 

Meta’s Advantage+ is already automating campaign targeting, creative variations, and cost cap optimizations. With just a few clicks, it can set up highly efficient ad campaigns that optimize on the fly. It will only get better (Learn more here.)

Google’s Performance Max campaigns take it a step further, offering a single campaign type that automatically distributes ads across YouTube, Search, Display, and more while optimizing performance for specific goals like lead gen or sales. Again, it is early days and will keep getting better (See how it works.)

AI is gunning for the repetitive, button-clicking parts of growth marketing. It’s removing guesswork and letting anyone—even your cousin who still uses Internet Explorer—set up a solid campaign.

But this won’t mean growth teams are obsolete. It just means the job is changing. Instead of spending hours tweaking bids and fiddling with targeting, growth marketers will need to focus on what AI can’t yet (entirely) do: understanding audiences deeply, crafting killer creative, etc.

5: The SMS Honeymoon Is Over

For years, SMS marketing has been the darling of retention teams, boasting insane open rates that made email look like it might disappear overnight. 

My prediction: Overuse (and abuse) is killing the golden goose. By the end of 2025, more consumers will hit their breaking point.

SMS used to feel exclusive—VIP-only messaging. Now, it's just another inbox flooded with “FLASH SALE!” and “HURRY, LAST CHANCE!” every single day.

Data shows opt-out rates are already creeping up for brands that treat SMS like an endless sales megaphone instead of the personal, high-value channel it’s meant to be. 

Google and Yahoo stepped in on the email front, and both TCPA and carriers will continue to step in on the SMS side (excluding political SMSs–for some reason, those are ok 🫠)

The brands that thrive in SMS in 2025 will use it sparingly and intentionally:

• Personalized messages that actually matter to the recipient (think restocks, rewards updates, a unique pitch to a specific customer on a product they might like, not yet another generic sale).
• A focus on exclusivity—turn SMS into a “members-only” club with VIP perks, early drops, or limited-time access.
• Respecting customer boundaries by limiting frequency and ensuring every message justifies its place on someone’s lock screen.

Brands that don’t evolve will face mass unsubscribes, getting blocked, and being marked as spam. Once the SMS trust is broken, there’s no getting it back.

6: Bonus Prediction: Empathy Takes Center Stage

By the end of 2025, the ecom “influencers” and industry leaders we so admire will lean into kindness and empathy. The era of the ecom vigilante—quick to cancel, critique, or call out—will fade, replaced by a culture that assumes positive intent first (unless proven otherwise).

Empathy will not just be about how brands treat their customers but also how we treat one another as an industry (including how we treat SaaS vendors.)

Or, you know… maybe this is just my personal wishlist disguised as a prediction. Either way, I’m putting it out there and manifesting, if you will.

All right, that’s all from me. It's time to close this tab and return to pretending I don’t have 35 Slack notifications waiting. Namaste.

That’s it for this week!

Cheers, 

Eli 💛

P.S. Looking for inspo on your next email/sms campaign?

I know you will love this.