The New Currency of Success: Experience Now, Reputation for the Future
In today’s world, reputation and customer experience (CX) aren’t just measures of performance—they are engines of momentum. Reputation reflects how the wider public perceives your purpose, values, employees, growth, and more. CX reveals how customers feel during their interactions with your company or services and can be constructed from one single interaction or a hundred strung together. Seen together, reputation and CX provide the clearest signal of which companies are winning today, but also who is building the right to lead tomorrow.
The Harris Poll UK’s new 2025 Corporate Reputation Index and 2025 Customer Experience Index together provide the most comprehensive view yet of how companies are performing regarding Reputation and CX, based on over 20,000 consumer evaluations and more than 1 million datapoints.
Who are the standout performers in CX and Reputation?
Customer Experience Leaders: AO, P&O Cruises, Jet2, Bupa and John Lewis top this year’s Customer Experience Index. They show that excellence isn’t about doing everything perfectly but rather remembering to create experiences that centre on your customer. Each succeeds in different ways: AO through personalised service and transparency giving customers frictionless control from order process through to delivery and installation, P&O Cruises by investing in digital tools that enables customers to curate their perfect holiday, Jet2 with strong staff presence and supportive service at every stage of the journey, Bupa through a focus on care giving staff permission to own and resolve customer issues, and John Lewis by sustaining its reputation for reliable service.
Corporate Reputation Leaders: Lego, Lush, Patagonia and Sony emerged as the most reputable companies in the UK. Lego is recognised for combining creativity with dependability across generations and consistently drives it’s brand purpose through its entire ecosystem from staff interactions through to manufacturing innovative products; Lush for values-led retail that connects with consumers through deeply immersive in-store experiences; Patagonia for its continuous leadership on sustainability; and Sony for delivering innovation in consumer technology that feels relevant and useful.
At the other end of both scales, companies like Evri, Royal Mail and Ryanair appear consistently in the bottom rankings, underlining how service frustrations and poor experiences can quickly harden into long-term reputational challenges.
What do the findings reveal?
Our studies show that reputation and CX are deeply interconnected. Frustrations with delivery, service or communication don’t just impact satisfaction in the moment — they accumulate into broader perceptions of character, trajectory and fairness. Conversely, companies that are seen to deliver value with clarity, provide supportive service, and leave customers feeling valued and understood generate loyalty and advocacy well beyond the point of purchase.
4 key trends revealed through the CX Index in 2025:
Supportive CX interactions are key. Customers seek a quality, service interaction when they are most in need.
CX must deliver value and leave one feeling valued. Leave customers feeling that you care and value them. Go beyond transactional interactions in the moments that matter to your customers.
Know and turbocharge your CX sweet spot. Aligning your mission and purpose with CX development gives you a competitive advantage that differentiates your CX and gives you license to lead your category.
Pure-players teach established sectors a CX lesson. New sector entrants show that you don’t always need a physical branch; Connection and adaptability can be delivered through a digital-first approach that ensures innovation and development are lined up to solve customer pain points.
On the Reputation side, the 2025 findings show that profit follows purpose. Companies with clearly defined values, fairness in customer dealings and a visible trajectory of innovation are rewarded with stronger reputational standing. In contrast, those with persistent service challenges or governance concerns continue to face entrenched scepticism.
So What does this mean for companies?
The findings from both studies highlight clear lessons for businesses looking not just to compete today, but to carry their brands forward:
Disruption is raising the bar. Challenger banks, discount grocers and digital-first platforms are shifting consumer expectations across entire sectors. The companies that move with them set the pace; those that stand still risk being left behind.
Efficiency is not enough. Being fast and frictionless is the baseline—it keeps you in the game. But the brands pulling ahead are those that go further, delivering supportive service and leaving customers feeling valued and understood.
Identify and amplify your strengths. Leaders don’t try to win everywhere; they double down on what sets them apart, whether that’s digital-first convenience, human presence, or values-led positioning. A win-win is achieved by fusing a company’s purpose and strengths with CX delivery achieving a clarity of purpose for both employees and customers.
Reputation isn’t built in campaigns, it’s built in continuity. The choices you make every day—in building trust, aligning with purpose and consistent delivery—are what carry your brand forward through disruption and change. Companies like Patagonia and Lush show how a long-term commitment to values compounds into a sustainable business model that both builds resilience and drives growth.
Looking Ahead
Both of these studies shine a light on what matters most to customers and stakeholders today, but their greater value lies in pointing to what comes next. The companies leading the charge are those leaning into the importance of experience now — and showing consumers where the journey leads.
For businesses, the challenge is not simply to meet expectations, but to move them forward: to close the gap between what people expect and what they experience, and to build reputations strong enough to endure volatility and change.
The leaders of tomorrow will be those who see reputation and CX not as scorecards, but as engines of momentum. The question is: are you keeping pace, or setting it?
Explore the full findings here: