As consumer expectations continue to change and market competition remains fierce across industries, exceptional customer experience is a requirement. In fact, 40% of customers will walk away from a company after just one poor service experience, according to Five9’s 2025 Customer Experience Report.
Artificial Intelligence presents significant opportunities for businesses to improve the customer experience across industries at-scale, addressing top consumer frustrations including long hold times, the use of non-preferred channels, and inconsistent handoffs. However, it must be implemented correctly to ensure trust and widespread adoption from customers.
To achieve long-term success with AI, best practices for implementation include keeping customers in the loop, maintaining human engagement, and building customer trust.
Leverage the Voice of the Customer and Meet Them Where They Are
Today’s consumers demand fast, easy, multi-channel support. According to Five9, nearly 60% of consumers report that their preferred service channel depends on the situation. Therefore, successful AI implementation hinges on the ability to meet customers where they are with support anytime and anywhere.
Phone support still remains the top support channel for customers. That does not just reflect preference, but can also be an indication of consumers’ experience with digital channels. Meeting customers where they are does not mean neglecting the digital experience entirely to focus on phone support, but rather working to enhance the digital experience to make it more user friendly. Oftentimes, digital channels such as email or chatbots can be difficult for customers to navigate and time consuming.
AI can be a powerful tool for upgrading the digital customer experience. It can help to manage large volumes of routine inquiries such as answering frequently asked questions, booking appointments, or confirming order details, freeing up live agents to handle more complex issues and cutting down on wait times.
Consumers are starting to see these benefits and are not opposed to AI usage in their customer service, if done correctly. Specifically, 72% of consumers are open to AI-powered interactions, provided they can escalate to a service rep when needed and 59% say they would interact with a chatbot for instant support over waiting for a live engagement. However, it’s critical that companies thoughtfully balance the use of AI with human interaction to properly meet customer needs. Start with an outside-in perspective, focusing on automation use cases that benefit the customer. All too often the business case is internally focused, on operational cost savings, and not surprisingly the customer experience is lost. Build the self service experience for the customer, they will use it and the operational saving will follow.
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Avoid Over-Automating Engagement and Keep Service Reps in the CX Loop
While AI-driven and self-service customer service options are continuing to grow in use in the CX space, the need for human engagement is ever present. Now, with AI the need for companies to thoughtfully integrate automation while preserving essential human touchpoints is sharpened.
This balance is particularly crucial in more sensitive industries, such as healthcare or financial services, where emotionally charged conversations require human engagement and emotion. As to be expected, compassion continues to be a foundational element of great customer service with 86% of respondents reporting that, in any situation, empathy and human connection matter more than quick responses.
So, how can companies create this balance? Utilizing AI for routine inquiries and human agents for complex interactions is a good place to start. But companies looking to take AI implementation a step further can go beyond that, using AI to also enhance the experience with the service rep.
When used together, AI and human agents can be a powerful CX tool. AI solutions can provide live agents with contextual data – real-time insights, customer history, and conversation sentiment analysis that can automate back-end processes and elevate the customer experience. When used in this way, service reps can more effectively and efficiently manage customer interactions, meeting demands for quick, personalized and low effort service.
Build Customer Trust Through Ease, Accuracy, and Transparency
As companies expand their use of AI in both a customer-facing, self-service capacity, or on the backend with human support, building and maintaining trust is paramount. AI-driven service options must be accessible, accurate, and engaging and the stakes are high, with 36% of consumers reporting they would be unwilling to use a chatbot again after a negative experience.
Further, skepticism and hesitancy from consumers persists, with nearly one in three consumers (30%) doubting its accuracy. And if customers don’t trust their AI driven service options, companies will be skeptical too. To address these concerns, companies need a robust AI trust and guidance framework, an observability platform to validate performance of AI tool to improve performance and build trust.
Transparency is equally as important. For companies looking to improve customer confidence, disclosing when AI is being used, providing clear handoff options to human agents, and safeguarding data privacy will be key. Trust is built through safe AI practices such as clear disclosure and maintained compliance with data protection regulations.
Ultimately, making AI systems easier to use, more accurate, and transparent will help consumers view them as an asset to their customer experience and will promote long-term AI success.
The Road Ahead: Continuous Improvement is Key
Successful AI implementation cannot just be set-it-and-forget-it. Companies must commit to ongoing improvements by actively seeking feedback from both customers and agents to identify and address pain points, gaps in service, and issues with performance. The organizations that will succeed with AI implementation in CX are those that treat AI solutions as an ongoing, strategic asset, rather than a static technology investment. Overall, companies that actively listen to the voice of the customer, keep humans in the loop, and prioritize transparency will reap the benefits of ongoing AI success.
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