CX News
Misplaced blame when orders go wrong
When an order has a delivery mishap, who gets the blame? You’d think it falls on the shipper, but that’s changing.
In 2022, 83% of consumers blamed shipping providers for delivery mishaps. New research shows in 2025, it’s just 39%. Now, much of the blame has shifted to merchants.
The study also found many consumers want to customize delivery options and want shipping protection. Some of these logistics and delivery options are easier to pull off than others, but the time is now to start investing in better fulfillment experiences for your customers.
Check out some of our interviews with thought leaders on strategies to enhance fulfillment as part of your customer experience:
Turning fulfillment into a growth engine
Why the post purchase experience is your biggest missed opportunity
The power of post-purchase order editing
Customers prefer human support, but AI-powered support is satisfactory
A new report studying customer care responses on social media has some intriguing findings about AI-powered support. Here are the top nuggets:
- 60% of consumers have concerns that AI-generated responses from brands may be inaccurate.
- 56% of consumers surveyed say they prefer a human for customer support issues; just 25% prefer only AI-powered support.
- 71% of consumers surveyed report that they were satisfied or “very” satisfied with customer support experiences that involved AI.
This is another reason why human-in-the-loop is so important; most respondents are pretty happy with AI-powered support, but they clearly see that purely-AI powered support as inferior.
Reducing service failures with better emotional regulation
Everyone who has worked a frontline customer service job has had a tough customer. New academic research finds that when faced with customer mistreatment, service workers who genuinely engage in regulating their emotional responses rather than faking it are less emotionally exhausted and more resilient to customer mistreatment. This in turn reduces service failures and improves the overall customer experience.
This can be tricky to handle in the moment, and too often service workers are expected to grin and bear it - but that can be at the detriment to perfectly normal customers later. CX leaders: find ways to build this space into your workflows, especially before the busy holiday shopping season comes around.
AI Headlines
1. A new AI company called Hyper has raised $6.3m to help automate 911 calls - but by allowing tech to handle non-emergent calls to free up time for responders to address emergencies. This is a neat application of the model of automating the less important tasks to allow agents to handle the top pressing needs.
2. Gemini Deep Think, Google DeepMind’s advanced AI, just achieved gold-medal performance at the 2025 International Mathematical Olympiad—solving five of six problems in natural language within competition time. For CX leaders, this milestone shows how reasoning-rich AI will soon power more intuitive, efficient, and autonomous customer experiences across complex domains.
3. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, warns of an AI ‘fraud crisis’ at a presentation at the United States Federal Reserve. For CX leaders, this means you’ll need to be vigilant with your security to prevent fraud against your company but also safeguarding customer data.
4. Japan is taking part in the “sovereign AI” movement, spending billions of yen on the domestic development of AI, chips and infrastructure. Its main goals for this are earthquake risk assessments, emergency communications, and addressing the chronic labor shortage.
Join us in New York
We’re teaming up with friends at Willpower for their Catalyst series! You can expect:
- Consumer Brand Community: Connect with fellow brand builders making bold moves in NYC and beyond.
- Wellness Cocktails & Mocktails: Curated drink menu — plus a few house favorites (hint: picante lovers, this one’s for you).
- Elevated Bites: High-end, catered small plates served throughout the evening.
- Product Gifting: Take home goods from some of our (and soon to be your) favorite brands
Tuesday July 29
6:30-9:30 PM
Location in NYC, shared upon RSVP approval
