Senior marketers and brand executives understand that customers are in the driver’s seat and gauge brand success by customer experience, according to a new executive survey. In fact, maintaining customer loyalty outranked profit on a list of priorities.

But those most accountable for tracking and adapting to customer trends often lack the tools they need to do their job.

A new international survey conducted by Calabrio and Morar of more than 800 CEOs, CMOs, COOs and other senior-level marketers showed the majority not only perceive customer retention as the best success metric for customer experience programs, but that retention outranks profit in terms of corporate priorities.

The study found 53% of its respondents regard customer experience “as the most important way of
differentiating their brand.”

However, a considerable portion of the survey’s CMO respondents indicated they lack the ability to accurately track customer experience. For example, 47% of CMOs polled said they did not have “the right tools deployed in order to understand their customers’ greatest challenges.” Another 29% said they could not tell how many devices a given consumer used over the course of their purchase journey.