Customer expectations have accelerated sharply whilst satisfaction has deteriorated, creating a widening gap that most organisations are failing to close. Verint's data reveals that 51% of consumers now report unmet expectations—up from 46% in 2025—even as 42% report their own expectations have increased year-on-year. This isn't a marginal shift; it represents a fundamental recalibration of what customers consider acceptable. The paradox driving this disconnect is that consumers simultaneously demand both instant, frictionless automation and the reassurance of human availability. Sixty-one percent prefer live agents, yet two-thirds of those same consumers would abandon that preference if self-service could resolve their issue. For CX teams, this creates an uncomfortable truth: the technology to deliver on both fronts exists, but implementation remains inconsistent. As Gartner notes, companies are struggling to capture value from AI-supported workflows despite their time-saving potential—suggesting the problem isn't capability but orchestration.
The implications for support operations are substantial. Teams deploying Zendesk, Freshdesk, or Salesforce are sitting atop platforms theoretically capable of delivering the nuanced balance consumers demand, yet 51% of businesses are still missing the mark. This suggests that platform selection alone is insufficient; the real challenge lies in workflow design and agent enablement. The question becomes whether teams are using these platforms to create genuinely intelligent routing—where automation handles what it should and escalation to live agents happens seamlessly—or whether they're simply bolting AI onto existing processes. Notably, 79% of consumers acknowledge AI's value in customer service, particularly for resolution speed, indicating the barrier isn't consumer resistance but rather poor implementation that fails to deliver on that promise. For smaller vendors and consultancies, this gap represents both risk and opportunity: risk that larger platforms will consolidate their market position through superior AI integration, but opportunity to specialise in the orchestration layer where most organisations are currently failing.
Exceptional customer service wins loyalty, but businesses are missing the mark Customer Experience Dive