Top 3 CX news stories

1) Cash App owes $175m for insufficient fraud fighting 

Regulators came down on the parent company of Cash App for failing to combat fraud against its own users. How?

In part, a phone support line where customers tried to report fraudulent activity didn’t connect to agents and simply redirected customers back to the app for service. Then, Cash App stonewalled customers who asked for refunds on fraudulent charges. Scammers figured this out and proceeded to take advantage of Cash App users.

This is a pretty egregious example of poor customer service and clearly illustrates why consumer trust in brands is so low.

2) Microsoft says customer service is broken

Microsoft dug into problems with contact centers in the UK that are driving bad customer experiences.

The report found: 

  • 87% of staff feel the volume of queries has increased
  • 56% of staff feel close to burnout
  • Just 11% of European contact centers have embraced cloud solutions
  • Typical wait times range from 2 to 35 minutes depending on the industry

The solution? You subscribe to this newsletter, so you already know - it’s better tech and automation.
 

3) Apple pulls back AI-generated summaries

AI based LLMs can hallucinate when trying to fill in the gaps in its knowledge. When that makes it into production for a feature, consumers will fight back. Apple is rolling back AI notification summaries for news and entertainment after reports of inaccurate summaries.

This leads CX industry folks to think: are AI generated summaries ready for prime time in customer support? Many are finding trouble in scaling the solution to enterprise level businesses.

The lesson: Take time with your AI setup, training, and rollouts. It can do a lot, but it’s not a plug-and-play solution (at least, not yet). Start soon as the technology will continue to advance.

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Golden nuggets

'You deserve better customer service': Path of Exile 2 studio apologizes for long support wait times but with 545,000 emails received, it's kind of understandable

Capital One is facing a major service outage, leaving many customers without access to their paychecks

3 Critical Strategies To Meet Customers’ Rising Expectations