CX Insights
Fan experiences on the mind
Here’s your periodic reminder that a human writes this newsletter! Fan experiences have been on my mind a lot lately given the news of the Live Nation / Ticketmaster monopoly ruling earlier this month. Now, it’s a huge deal if you can buy a ticket for face value - like when Ticketmaster cancelled some scalped tickets for Harry Styles concerts and the tickets were on sale for face value again. Getting tickets for the entry price used to be a given, so long as you bought tickets when you went on sale. And back then, you didn’t need a special credit card to get first access.
I used to go to a lot of concerts, but the rising ticket prices have made that less and less possible. I didn’t even try to get World Cup tickets. I feel behind since I haven’t gotten tickets to the LA Olympics, which are 2 years away.
In contrast to all of this, a brightly colored baseball exhibition league stands out as a bright spot. That’s right, we’re talking Banana Ball. I was thrilled when they announced a national tour. But, I was so disappointed when I didn’t win the lottery to buy tickets to the game at Yankee Stadium. But last Friday morning, I got an email - they were moving up the game due to rain, and had tickets available from fans who were reselling theirs. My husband and I snagged tickets and I was ecstatic.
Jesse Cole, the founder of Banana Ball, is a massive advocate of the fan experience. His LinkedIn posts about creating a fans-first marketplace translate to great experiences in real life. Yes, I had to make yet another account and download a special app to get my tickets, and the UI was not the best, but I got tickets - and at face value. I’ll never have that good of seats for that price ever again.
The people seated in front of my husband and me told us our seats were part of their party originally, and they were so pleasantly surprised they resold so quickly. It was a win-win experience for all involved. And that’s all thanks to a relentless focus on what makes things better for fans.
The kicker? I got a followup email this week with a photo of a handwritten thank you letter from one of the players, discussing how special it was for him to get a chance to pitch a Yankee stadium, along with links to rewatch the game on YouTube. It was the perfect blend of old school and new school retention tactics.
Regardless of whether your brand is in the entertainment or events industry or not, Jesse’s approach is a huge lesson for all CX leaders: the experience has to be fundamental to your brand. Thinking of it as the “fan experience” is a good spin on it. What are you doing to turn customers into fans?
Gartner: CX leaders using AI to expand human agent responsibilities
Gartner has some new research about the role of AI on human customer experience agent jobs. Here’s a quick rundown of the findings:
- 85% of CX leaders are expanding human agent responsibilities
- 75% are shifting agents into entirely new roles within the CX team
- 31% have implemented, or are planning, layoffs in response to AI through the first quarter of 2027
- 63% of CX leaders are reducing frontline headcount gradually through attrition
A guest article in Customer Experience Dive from the senior director analyst in Gartner’s customer service practice explains more - including some paradoxes. Teams save about 5.5 hours a week with AI but are not necessarily actually shifting the time to higher-value tasks. 60% of human workers don’t want their workloads to shift to more complex tasks (or maybe they would, if the compensation was commensurate).
Ultimately, AI is augmenting, not replacing - exactly what we’re all about at Kustomer with the “human in the loop” approach.
Southwest’s turnaround is paying off
A little over a year ago I wrote about Southwest ending its free bag policy and I wondered if the move would pay off for the airline. It seems as if Southwest’s general focus on new policies has paid off. The CEO reports these YoY gains:
- revenue per available seat mile increased 11.2%
- managed business revenue grew a record 16%
- its Rapid Rewards program increased enrollments 37%
Southwest took a multi-pronged approach, introducing things like assigned seating and extra legroom seats at the same time it introduced new fare policies. A broader transformation can work because the focus isn’t on a single change that may be make-or-break for customers; it’s about updating the experience as a whole.
USPS launching second customer experience pilot
Your mailing experience should only keep getting better. The United States Postal Service is launching a second Customer Experience Vision Activation pilot, across 16 sorting and distribution centers - up from 4 in its first pilot. In addition to measuring service requests, customer satisfaction and employee availability like in the first pilot, this one introduces a point-of-sale overall satisfaction score.
More data from more centers will help the USPS scale the implementation of new policies that can make it easier next time you need to head into a post office.
Tune In
Tuesday, May 12, 2026 at 2:00 PM ET
Your CX ecosystem should drive retention — not just resolve issues.
On May 12, experts from Kustomer, Ordergroove, AfterShip, and Signifyd will share how modern brands connect fraud, subscriptions, post-purchase, and support into a full-lifecycle CX engine that measurably grows revenue.
AI Headlines
Chinese authorities shut down Meta’s $2B acquisition of Manus - The deal was announced back in December, and the Manus app was already available within Meta Business Manager, but Chinese regulators have been investigating the transaction since early 2026.
Google investing up to $40B in Anthropic - Starting with an initial $10B investment, Google will invest more once Anthropic reaches further performance targets, as well as supply five gigawatts of computing power.
Florida House of Representatives rejects AI regulation proposal - The state government rejected Governor DeSantis’s proposal, paving the way for the federal government to take a broader approach rather than a patchwork of state-level regulations.
Ace Hardware introduces AI Assistant to strengthen in-store service - focusing on providing reliable, consistent in-store service supports the brand’s mission to allow associates to focus on meaningful customer engagements.
Nvidia executive says right now AI is more expensive than paying human workers - The vice president of applied deep learning shared that AI computing costs more than his human team, countering the point of laying off workers in favor of AI replacing them.
