CX News

 

70% of customers don’t care what brands are saying



Too much outreach from brands is ruining the customer experience. A new study finds:

 

  • 7/10 consumers feel brands send so many messages, they don’t care what brands are saying anymore.
  • 59% of consumers have deleted critical messages, like bills or fraud alerts, mistaking them for marketing or spam.
  • Almost 2/3 of consumers worry they’ll miss critical messages because of the overwhelming number of communications that brands send today.

 

This is a good reminder to streamline your customer communications at the pre- and post- purchase stages, especially for brands that rely on repeat business where those communications can double up.

It’s also why omnichannel support is so critical for customer experience brands. Make it easy for customers to reach out to you on a platform they prefer - it’ll probably be one that allows them to cut through the noise and mental clutter.

 


A hidden driver of customer loyalty: feeling safe



New research from the academic Journal of Business Research shows that customer safety—physical, digital, and emotional—is central to loyalty. When shoppers feel protected from risks like scams or unsafe stores, their trust, well-being, and spending rise. This makes safety a key driver of stronger, more resilient retail brands.


It makes sense. If we step into a store that’s poorly maintained, it leaves a bad impression and can drive away purchases in favor of competitors with clean, safe facilities. 

 

CX leaders: work closely with your cross functional partners around the organization holistically. Make sure physical facilities feel safe for consumers with proper protocols and staffing, especially coming into the busy holiday shopping season. Work with your IT teams to ensure customer data is protected. Trust and safety matters to consumers in the age of AI, both digitally and in the real world.



UK consumers still prefer human support over AI

 

A new study found 83% of respondents across the United Kingdom prefer speaking to a real person and only 4% prefer a virtual agent or chatbot. However, there are some important nuances by demographic groups:

  • Among 16-24 year olds, 7% said they preferred AI assistance, and 17% had no preference.
  • When the question shifted to non-urgent matters, support for AI increased slightly. 
  • More than 30% of people said that they would be more likely to patronize a brand that lowered prices by automating customer interactions with AI; men were slightly more favourable than women, 34% versus 28%.

The key takeaways here: if you’re using customer-facing AI, make it a better, more effective experience. Deploy it first for non-urgent use cases to free up human support. You can also explore AI tools that empower your human agents if your customer base is not yet excited about automated customer support.

Kustomer just launched four new AI assistants to make getting started with these tools even easier. Get a demo of Kustomer’s AI tools to check them out.

AI News

Delta begins roll out of generative AI-powered virtual assistant - AI in travel is all about giving passengers more information, options, and facilitating smoother journeys (literally). 

Retailers enter a generative AI feedback loop - consumers are using AI to shop and evaluate products, and retailers are using AI to help show up in those AI results, but some retailers need to adjust their systems to handle more nuanced queries coming in their searches.

A new study from University of Florida finds that generative AI may help turn consumers into active collaborators and creators - inspired by campaigns from Coca-Cola and Heinz, researchers studied the role of consumers personalizing ad content and building brand affinity.

AI Inference Startup Fireworks AI Is Valued at $4 Billion in Funding Round - the company raised $254 million to further develop its artificial intelligence cloud infrastructure.

Kustomer launches MCP server - The best customer experiences happen when humans and AI work together—and it all starts with the right data. Discover how Kustomer’s MCP Server connects your customer insights to AI tools, empowering more personalized insights and service.