CX News
⅔ of consumers abandon tasks because they’re too annoying
You’ve probably encountered this: it’s too annoying to do a task, so you give up. You’re among the two-thirds of consumers who have abandoned a digital task because the process was too annoying.
Why does this happen? Well, just one-third of respondents report that digital self-service instructions are usually or always clear. Plus, 84% reported they’ve found themselves re-entering information that a company should already have.
It’s a good reminder: test your customer service flows and make sure they work. Optimize for the lowest common denominator when it comes to ease of use. Automate what you can to minimize effort on behalf of your customers. Carving out time to make these optimizations can deliver a positive return for little to no cost.
93% of execs: digital experience is broken
Perhaps no surprise after the above story: A Code Theory and WSJ Intelligence report of 800 senior executives found that 94% of executives say CX drives business success, but 93% admit their digital experience is fundamentally broken. In addition, only 44% understand how to deploy AI to build customer relationships.
You can’t build a house on a broken foundation. Strong relationships with customers all come down to the state of your brand’s data and the architecture your organization uses to power the customer experience team.
Check out the Crawl, Walk, Run framework that you can use to lay the groundwork to actually be able to harness AI to support your customer relationships.
Consumers feel “more negative” about this holiday season
Modern Retail reports that consumers are feeling the pinch before the holiday season kicks off.
69% of respondents express some level of financial worry about the holidays, with 40% being either "very" or "extremely" concerned about affordability. Still, 38% still plan to spend ~$500 on gifts but shoppers feel more negative than in years past.
There’s only so much you can do on pricing (and nothing about the economy at large), and the solution isn’t just to discount to win shoppers over. Carrying the theme from other stories above - turn around the negativity by fixing annoying processes, deliver value, and deliver stellar experiences when connecting with customers. Bring in the human element whenever possible and leave shoppers feeling better than when they arrived.
Tune In
Wednesday, October 15
9 AM PT / 12 PM ET
Don’t race to the bottom this BFCM season.
Join us and partners from Shopify, Ordergroove, Attentive, and Triple Whale on a webinar to get actionable strategies on how to succeed this holiday season. We’ll cover:
- Driving repeat sales and retention
- Preserving margins with operational efficiency
- Keeping customers engaged beyond a single purchase
- Redefining “value” for today’s cost-conscious shoppers
AI News
Customer experience quality is improving, but is AI powering it?
Perhaps no.
Qualtrics surveyed consumers about satisfaction and found that while most measures improved from last year, there were some nuances in the data:
- Nearly 1 in 5 said AI did not benefit them
- Half of consumers are concerned that Al will impede their ability to connect to a human
- CX gains were in “easy to switch” industries like fast food
The head of thought leadership at Qualtrics XM Institute said the poor quality experiences came from hastily turning on AI chatbots with poor quality data.
An alternative is to use more AI under the hood: explore AI copilots as a tool to empower your human reps if your customers are concerned about connecting with a human. They may not know that AI has supported the team member who helped them, but you’ll build valuable trust.
Build confidence in your AI by testing at scale
Trust is a key theme when it comes to customers embracing any AI use in the customer experience. To ensure all of our clients feel confident in our AI before rolling it out to their customers, we’re supercharging testing within Kustomer’s AI Agent Studio.
With AI Agent Evaluations, you can run automated tests on your AI Agents and instantly see at scale where they succeed or fail, with clear scores you can use to refine performance before launch.
With AI Conversation Safeguards, you can detect stalled conversations in real time and decide what happens next, whether that’s closing a case or seamlessly routing to a human agent.
Together, these products take CX teams beyond trial and error, into enterprise-grade AI operations where automation can be deployed with rigor, reliability, and confidence.
Read more about how they work!
AI in casinos
Casinos prioritize AI for operations—kiosks, games, automation—while its powerful compliance uses, like detecting fraud and money laundering through pattern analysis, lag. Experts urge scaling AI for AML, but profitability concerns and evolving criminal tactics mean regulators, operators, and researchers must weigh risks and rewards.
For those outside of the gaming industry, it’s a reminder that AI has the potential to be more impactful to your brand under the hood - don’t limit yourself to client-facing applications.
