Inconsistent experiences from company to company create trust issues.
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I write a lot about AI and digital customer experience (CX), and many of the executives I interview and articles I reference talk about how AI will revolutionize, change, help, and sometimes hurt CX. So, you listen to the experts, but what if you listened to your customers?
That’s exactly what we did in our annual Customer Service & CX survey sponsored by RingCentral. We asked over 1,000 U.S. consumers about their experiences with AI and digital customer support, and here are the basic findings for 2024:
Pros
62% of US consumers expect AI (and related technologies) to be the primary means of customer service in the future. But what about today? As some of the survey findings below show, not everyone feels AI is ready for primetime customer service and CX.
· 38% believe AI and related technologies will enable more personalized customer experiences. Personalization is a hot topic for marketing and CX leaders. AI will greatly improve companies and brands' ability to leverage customer data to create personalized experiences. Customers prefer to do business with companies that know them and use their information to create better experiences.
49% of respondents believe AI technologies have the potential to improve the overall customer experience. While this is good news, the following findings suggest that companies still face an uphill battle to get customers to adopt and accept AI-powered CX:
Cons
Only 32% of customers were able to resolve their customer service issues using AI or ChatGPT technology. This number is low. One theory is that customers are often unaware that there is AI behind their actions. Some think that AI is a chatbot or an automated voice response system that interacts as a human would or should.
56% of customers admit they are afraid of technology like AI and ChatGPT. Some of these customers may have seen movies about computers taking over the world or robots going berserk, none of which have any basis in reality. However, some customers don't trust technology due to bad experiences in the past.
63% of customers are frustrated with self-service options using AI, ChatGPT, and similar technologies. Frustration is different from fear, but the impact is the same: customers avoid technology and prefer to speak to a live human for support and service.
When studying the implications of these findings holistically, the overall theme of why AI hasn't caught on as a viable, reliable customer support option is a lack of consistency. Included in this annual survey are findings that 70% of customers choose to speak to a live customer service agent over the phone as their primary channel for customer service.
Why? It's easier to talk and interact with a live agent, so your customers know what to expect. What your customers don't want to experience is an AI-powered self-service solution that walks them through a series of prompts that ultimately lead them to a dead end and force them to call your company.
The fear and frustration is well-founded: As more customers begin to be exposed to and understand AI, inconsistent experiences are emerging across companies, creating trust issues, and emerging technologies that are extremely cost-effective for small businesses are not being purchased and implemented by the vast majority of companies.
As of the beginning of the year, only 27% of customers believe that self-service or automated customer support using AI-powered technology provides the same customer experience as a live agent. This number will eventually rise, but not as quickly as it needs to. Once companies realize that poor service means lost business, they will invest in getting it right. That's not an option if you want your customers to say, “I'll come back.”
