92% of consumers expect brands to match the best experience they’ve ever had
Ninety one per cent of consumers say a company is only as good as the customer service it provides, a stat that’s increased by nine per cent since last year according to research published by Genesys.
Based in Menlo Park, Calif. where it provides cloud-based contact center solutions, Genesys surveyed 5,811 consumers and 1,560 CX and business leaders to produce its 2026 State of Customer Experience Report. This marks the fifth edition of the research.
Genesys found customer expectations don’t necessarily change based on whether they’re dealing with brands they know well. Nearly half (47 per cent) said they would stop doing business with a favorite brand after two or three bad experiences.
A good experience not only demonstrates a brands’ employees share the customer’s sentiment but executes well. Ninety four per cent said they value efficiency as much as empathy in a brand interaction.
Despite the promises of automation and AI, meanwhile, the report found handoffs aren’t being handled well. For instance, more than a quarter of consumers said they’ve had to repeat details to a human employee after engaging with a chatbot.
Perhaps worse, 52 per cent of CX professionals admitted they don’t pass on previously collected information to service reps amid customer interactions.
The result is half of both consumers and CX professionals surveyed said they would rather do anything else than reach out to a brand’s customer service team.
“CX organizations are investing in AI and making significant progress in improving the experiences they deliver. Yet scaling AI projects to production
and measuring impact continue to be challenging,” the report’s authors wrote. “Organizations are making progress towards orchestrating experiences across the customer journey. Those that aren’t yet in the cloud or haven’t fully embraced an intelligent AI-powered platform are struggling to deliver the experiences that consumers crave.”
360 Magazine Insight
When consumers say their best experience set the bar for all others, you have to wonder what make it so special. The first thing that comes to mind is a service rep who was friendly, seemed to go above and beyond and reinforced their trust in the brand. It’s hard to imagine those “best” experiences involved AI.
This matters, because the Genesys report shows 86 per cent of CX leaders expect AI to be part of every interaction by 2029 82 per cent of CX leaders expect autonomous AI agents to orchestrate the customer experience within three years.
Do these brands truly know what defines the best experience in their customers’ minds? And if so, how well will AI help scale those experiences vs. introducing new risks of disappointing them?
The top-cited AI challenge among CX professionals was “keeping pace with AI innovation” but the No. 1 CX priority for the next two years was “increasing customer value and loyalty.” In contrast, “automating CX processes and workflows with AI” ranked sixth in terms of priorities. Perhaps some brands are still trying to connect how the technology will support their biggest goals.
There is a lot more in this gated 57-page report worth reading, including a look at CX data challenges, the current appetite for self-service and regional breakdowns of the findings across Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and Middle East-Africa.
