Winners and losers: best and worst reviewed industries

CX Insights

The UK’s best and worst reviewed industries

Which type of industries get the most and least positive reviews? Capital on Tap dug into 15,000 reviews across the UK to find the winners and losers.

The best-reviewed include moving and storage services, electricians, and health consultants, all claiming 92% or more reviews as positive. The worst-reviewed were women’s clothing stores, fast food restaurants, and cafes - with over half of reviews for women’s apparel stores being negative!

It’s a helpful reminder for CX leaders to know the benchmarks for your industry, and strive to match those as a starting point.

Transparent pricing coming to Airbnb

Airbnb will display total reservation costs upfront, including service and cleaning fees, in line with a new FTC rule targeting “junk fees.” The change brings the US in alignment with other countries that have had total costs displayed since 2019.

Customers want honesty; clear, upfront pricing builds trust and loyalty. Whether driven by regulation or not, service providers should embrace transparency. It’s good policy and good customer experience.

CX: not just for the private sector

CX is transforming how governments serve people - not by changing policy, but by rethinking delivery. In New York, the first Chief Customer Experience Officer launched a toolkit empowering agencies to make services more accessible, which helped more families enroll in benefits faster. In Maryland, the Chief Digital Experience Officer shifted focus from tech projects to user outcomes, using new design methods to improve digital touchpoints like maryland.gov.

Creative, user-focused thinking can drive meaningful impact. Think outside of the box for your next initiative or approach to a problem!

AI Insights

This is your reminder: AI can’t wing it alone

AI-powered support gone wrong: Cursor, a popular AI coding tool, faced backlash after its AI bot “Sam” falsely claimed a new one-device policy, disrupting workflows and prompting user cancellations. The bot’s confident but fabricated response, an AI hallucination, was mistaken as official, triggering a trust crisis and cancelled subscriptions. Cursor later clarified the error, issued refunds, and labeled AI replies moving forward.

This is why a human-in-the-loop approach to AI is essential. Deploying AI in customer service without oversight or transparency can quickly erode trust, damage brand loyalty, and lead to costly fallout. Intentional, well-governed AI use isn’t optional.

When to hand off from AI to a human?

AI can enhance customer service, but emotional intelligence remains critical for building genuine customer connections. A Michigan State University researcher emphasizes the importance of knowing when AI should hand off to a human and not overestimating what AI can handle. CX managers of AI systems must understand their limitations and transition complex cases before the customer’s trust is compromised.

Fortunately, we’re starting to make strides in not just handing off work from the AI to a human, but also back to an AI for follow-up work. Check out Kustomer’s latest enhancements for a true human-in-the-loop model.

Golden Nuggets

How KFC’s customer listening program helps it nail the first experience

Microsoft Releases Three AI Agents for a More Autonomous Contact Center

Ex-Meta engineer raises $14M for Lace AI, a revenue generation software startup