Category Archives: Customer Experience

Make Life Easier for Your Customers

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

Companies that have products want to improve them year-on-year. This year’s must be better than last year’s. For selfish reasons, we like to improve cost, speed and quality. Cost reduction drops profit directly to the bottom line. Increased speed reduces overhead (less labor per unit) and increases floor space productivity (more through the factory). Improved quality reduces costs. And for our customers, we like to improve their productivity by helping them do more value-added work with fewer resources. More with less! But there’s a problem – every year it gets more difficult to improve on last year, especially with our narrowly-defined view of what customers value.

And some companies talk about creating the next generation business model, though no one’s quite sure of what the business model actually is and what makes for a better one.

To break out of our narrow view of “better” and to avoid endless arguments over business models, I suggest an approach based on a simple mantra – Make It Easy.

Make it easy for the customer to _____________.

And take a broad view of what customers actually do. Here are some ideas:

Make it easy to find you. If they can’t find you, they can’t buy from you.

Make it easy to understand what you do and why you do it. Give them a reason to buy.

Make it easy to choose the right solution. No one likes buying the wrong thing.

Make it easy to pay. If they need a loan, why not find one for them?

Make it easy to receive. Think undamaged, recyclable packaging, easy to get off the truck.

Make it easy to install. Don’t think user manuals, think self-installation.

Make it easy to verify it’s ready to go. No screens, no menus. One green light.

Make it easy to deliver the value-added benefit. We over-focus here and can benefit by thinking more broadly. Make it easy to set up, easy to verify the setup, easy to know how to use it, easy change over to the next job.

Make it easy to know the utilization. The product knows when it’s being used, why not give it the authority to automatically tell people how much free time it has?

Make it easy to maintain. When the fastest machine in the world is down for the count, it becomes tied for the slowest machine in the world. Make it easy to know what needs be replaced and when, make it easy to know how to replace it, make it easy to order the replacement parts, make it easy to verify the work was done correctly, make it easy to notify that the work was done correctly, and make it easy to reset the timers.

Make it easy to troubleshoot. Even the best maintenance programs don’t eliminate all the problems. Think auto-diagnosis. Then, like with maintenance, all the follow-on work should be easy.

Make it easy to improve. As the product is used, it learns. It recognizes who is using it, remembers how they like it to behave, then assumes the desired persona.

Though this list is not exhaustive, it provides some food for thought. Yes, most of the list is not traditionally considered value-added activities. But, customers DO value improvements in these areas because these are the jobs they must do. If your competition is focused narrowly on productivity, why not differentiate by making it easy in a more broader sense? When you do, they’ll buy more.

And don’t argue about your business model. Instead, choose important jobs to be done and make them easier for the customer. In that way, how you prioritize your work defines your business model. Think of the business model as a result.

And for a deeper dive on how to make it easy, here’s one of my favorite posts. The takeaway – Don’t push people toward an objective. Instead, eliminate what’s in the way.

Image credit: Pexels

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Are Happy Customers or Employees More Valuable?

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GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Do happy employees make happy customers, or is it the other way around? Do happy customers make employees happy?

I’ve written in many articles and books that a focus on the employee experience will improve the customer experience. The logic makes sense. If you treat employees well, they will be more engaged with their customers and fellow employees. My mantra has been:

What happens on the inside of an organization is felt on the outside by customers.

I had the chance to interview Sean Crichton-Browne, co-author of The Human Culture Imperative, for an episode of Amazing Business Radio. He challenges the concept, and in his book, he discusses how happy customers actually create happier and more engaged employees.

Crichton-Browne’s insights stem from his years of sales experience. He said, “I was happy when my customers were happy. Because at the end of the day, when I received that phone call from a disgruntled customer, I became exceptionally unhappy.” In other words, the emotional climate of a customer’s happiness (or unhappiness) had a direct impact on employee satisfaction.

Crichton-Browne’s “outside-in” approach flips the traditional “happy employees equals happy customers” approach and asks us to start with the end in mind. He argues that when customers are happy, employees will take greater pride in their work, stay longer and be more engaged.

While this idea makes sense, I’m still of the “happy employees first” mentality. No matter how great your product is, if you don’t support it with great service, the customer eventually moves on to the competition. That great service is the result of great employees positively engaging with their customers. You don’t want to make employees who control the customer experience unhappy. Again, what’s happening on the inside of the organization is felt on the outside by customers.

We did find some middle ground. There is no doubt that happy customers elevate employee morale. It’s like a continuous loop. Employees feel good when customers are happy, and customers feel good when employees are happy. Crichton-Browne says, “One cannot exist successfully without the other.”

So, what’s the takeaway from our conversation? First, don’t get caught up in the chicken-or-the-egg debate. The truth is that employee happiness and customer happiness feed off each other. Customers feel good when employees are engaged, and employees feel good when customers are happy. One can’t exist without the other, and together they create the kind of momentum that makes both employees and customers say, “I’ll be back!”

Image Credit: Gemini

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Investments That Make Your Company More Productive, Efficient and Customer-Friendly

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Investments That Make Your Company More Productive, Efficient and Customer-Friendly

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

What company doesn’t want to be more productive, efficient, and customer-friendly? (That’s a rhetorical question.) Isn’t this what every leader wants? Yet recent survey findings from Call Centre Helper an inconsistency in how organizations pursue these goals. This inconsistency can make or break their customer experience strategy. And if they fail their customers, their company may fail, as well.

The Call Centre Helper numbers tell the story. When asked where organizations can get maximum value for money while improving customer experience, a staggering 40% pointed to self-service solutions. Personalization came in a distant second at 18%, followed by productivity tools (12%). And despite years of improvement in AI, chatbots only received 8% of the vote.

In my own 2025 customer service and CX research of over 1,000 U.S. consumers, 68% still prefer the phone as their first choice for customer support, followed by online chat with a live agent at 55%. This creates what I call the customer experience investment paradox, where companies are pushing their investment into self-service tools while customers continue to value human-to-human interactions with live support agents.

The Self-Service Revolution is Real

In spite of the preference for phone support, the digital self-service revolution is real and becoming more important to companies. While the phone is still king, my research found that 34% of customers stopped doing business with a company because self-service options weren’t offered. That’s a third of your potential customers. Even if they prefer the phone, they want the option of doing it themselves.

There are some digital rockstar brands like Amazon and Uber, which have trained customers to expect instant and easy experiences. When customers can order groceries, stream entertainment, or hail a ride with a few taps of their mobile screen, they naturally expect similar experiences with every brand they encounter.

This makes the case for self-service, in spite of the customer’s desire to make a phone call. When the right solution is provided, the benefits to the company are big in the form of reduced operational costs and an improved customer experience. When executed well, self-service allows customers to resolve simple issues instantly, freeing up human agents to take on complex problems that require expertise and empathy.

That said, I regularly caution my clients that going “all in” on self-service without considering the larger customer journey could be a mistake. The keywords to consider are “when executed well.” Poorly implemented self-service creates frustrated customers who eventually demand human assistance anyway, often at a higher cost to resolve, and not to mention the bad will caused by the frustration.

Personalization: A Competitive Differentiator

The 18% investment in improving personalization shows that companies are understanding the importance of creating the personalized experience. My research reveals that 79% of consumers consider a personalized experience to be important.

Consumers are still being bombarded with generic messages from the companies they do business with that often leave them asking, “Why is this company sending this to me?” The result is customers disengage and often move on. As personalization technology improves (dramatically), analytics on a customer’s buying habits, frequency, past products purchased, and more can be incorporated into messaging and customer support experiences that have customers saying, “This company knows me.”

Smart companies use customer data to do more than personalize marketing messages and improve customer support. The data allows companies to anticipate needs, make recommendations for other products and services, and improve the overall customer experience.

The Relevance of the Human Connection

Despite a focus on digital investment, the human-to-human connection cannot be ignored. The fact that 68% of customers still prefer the phone confirms that self-service and chatbots may not be enough. Customers still want to talk to a live human being, especially about complex problems or major complaints.

However, the technology is getting better, and customers are becoming more confident with self-service solutions, which include chatbots. Also, as Gen Zs and younger Millennials become financially secure, they become a major force in the economy. They are the ones becoming I predict the 68% number will go lower for two reasons:

And age makes a difference, or does it? While my research finds that 82% of Baby Boomers prefer the phone, you can’t ignore that 52% of Gen Zs prefer it as well. At the same time, I predict that 68% of customers preferring the phone will go down for at least two reasons. First, the technology is getting better, and customers are becoming more confident with self-service solutions, which include improved chatbots. Second, Gen Zs and younger Millennials, who are more comfortable with technology, are becoming financially secure. The result is that they will be a major force in the economy.

Productivity and Efficiency

The 12% investment into productivity is about efficiency and optimizing the workforce. Some companies believe that being more efficient means replacing the workforce with technology. That’s a dangerous move for reasons and information already shared in this article. However, rather than saving money by eliminating employees, companies can make employees more productive. Imagine technology that saves employees 20% of their workday by eliminating menial tasks or answering basic questions that AI and chatbots can respond to. In turn, they use that time to focus on more important issues and tasks.

Many companies view chatbots as an investment in productivity, however according to the Call Centre Helper findings, companies are investing less than 8% in this powerful tool. My take on this is that companies have been let down by AI-fueled chatbots that make mistakes and hallucinate. That’s yesterday’s chatbot technology. Today, chatbots are far better than they were just a year ago. And if you’re worried about chatbots giving bad information to customers, don’t think that customers haven’t had the same experience with human support.

Final Words

The most successful companies I work with aren’t choosing between digital efficiency and human connection. They’re creating integrated experiences that deliver both. They use self-service for simple, routine interactions while ensuring a seamless hand-off to a human when needed. They leverage personalization to anticipate customers’ needs and build relationships. They invest in tools that enhance rather than replace human connection, achieving what every leader wants: a business that’s more productive, efficient, and loved by its customers.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com.

Image Credit: Gemini

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12 Technologies That Change Experience Faster Than Operating Models

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12 Technologies That Change Experience Faster Than Operating Models

by Braden Kelley and Art Inteligencia

Which Technologies Change Experience Faster Than Operating Models? (Short Answer)

Twelve technologies that change experience faster than operating models: (1) generative AI interfaces, (2) agentic automation, (3) hyper-personalization engines, (4) conversational front doors, (5) self-service deflection platforms, (6) always-on messaging and real-time alerts, (7) instant-promise commerce, (8) mobile/app feature factories, (9) recommendation and ranking systems, (10) frictionless identity, (11) connected products / IoT experience layers, and (12) low-code experience surfaces. Each can delight or betray in a sprint. The operating model — owners, incentives, policy, seams — still decides whether humans succeed.

Experience can now change at release velocity. Trust breaks at operating-model velocity — unless you redesign the model on purpose.

Why Isn’t Release Velocity the Same as Operating-Model Velocity?

Here, experience is what customers and employees encounter and feel across channels and moments. An operating model is how work, decisions, incentives, policies, ownership, and recovery actually run — not the org-chart slide.

I keep watching teams ship a new experience in a sprint while decision rights, recovery power, and the old path still move on political time. Soft landings are designed when leaders fund operating-model change with the stack. Hard landings arrive when experience outruns ownership. For the designed split of human and machine work, see The AI Soft Landing.

Technology	Experience speed	Operating-model lag
1. Generative AI	Instant answers and drafts	Accuracy, escalation, brand ownership
2. Agentic automation	Actions without tickets	Mandate, consent, liability
3. Hyper-personalization	Real-time journey reshaping	Consent, fairness, “optimize for whom?”
4. Conversational front doors	Bot/voice as first door	Handoff, context, human power
5. Self-service deflection	Work shifted overnight	Job completion, escape hatches
6. Always-on alerts	Continuous attention claims	Governance, truth, staffing
7. Instant-promise commerce	One-click commitments	Capacity truth, exception recovery
8. App feature factories	Weekly UX change	Policy, training, BAU owners
9. Ranking systems	Invisible reordering	Objectives, appeal, override
10. Frictionless identity	Fast entry	Recovery dignity when identity fails
11. Connected products / IoT	Live device experiences	Service design, parts, privacy
12. Low-code surfaces	Publish without IT wait	Ownership, quality, sunset

1. How Do Generative AI Interfaces Outrun Operating Models?

Changes experience fast: Drafts, advice, summaries, and “help” appear in seconds across product and service.

Operating model lags: Who owns accuracy, tone, escalation, and brand promise when the model is wrong?

Hard landing: Confident nonsense. Humans as rubber stamps. Trust spent on fluency.

Soft landing: Named judgment owners, disclosure, undo, and recovery power beside every gen-AI surface.

2. Why Does Agentic Automation Change Experience Before Mandate?

Changes experience fast: Systems refund, rebook, route, and trigger workflows without a human ticket.

Operating model lags: Decision rights, consent, liability, and who can be asked why.

Hard landing: Autonomy without ownership. Containment as the KPI.

Soft landing: Clarity, competence, control, care — accountability maps before scale. For ownership by scenario, see 5 Scenarios for Agentic Organizations and agentic CX that earns trust.

3. How Does Hyper-Personalization Move Faster Than Dignity Rules?

Changes experience fast: Offers, content, and journeys reshape per person in real time.

Operating model lags: Consent, minimization, fairness reviews, and “who we optimize for.”

Hard landing: Creepy recall. Manipulation that “converts.” Segment politics.

Soft landing: Purpose-bound memory. Opt-out that works. Care over conversion defaults.

4. Why Do Conversational Front Doors Outpace Seam Design?

Changes experience fast: Bot or voice becomes the first door for service and sales.

Operating model lags: Context handoff, human escalation without punishment, frontline power.

Hard landing: Loop traps. Retelling tax. Deflection celebrated as CX.

Soft landing: Designed handoffs. Dual scorecard. Finish-the-job metrics.

5. How Do Self-Service Platforms Change Experience Overnight?

Changes experience fast: Portals, FAQs, and apps push work to the customer overnight.

Operating model lags: Complexity reduction, failure ownership, escape hatches that work.

Hard landing: Unpaid labor. DIY that fails into worse contact. “Digital adoption” theater.

Soft landing: Job-completion design. Inventory unpaid labor. A human path with teeth. For the service design pattern, see 8 Service Design Mistakes That Create Efficient Misery.

6. Why Do Always-On Alerts Outrun Organizational Capacity?

Changes experience fast: Push, SMS, in-app, and status pings reshape attention continuously.

Operating model lags: Message governance, truth standards, staffing for the demand alerts create.

Hard landing: Anxiety as a product. Alert fatigue. Promises the back office cannot keep.

Soft landing: Status-as-experience with honest ETAs. Throttle rules. Owners for each alert class.

7. How Does Instant-Promise Commerce Outrun Fulfillment Politics?

Changes experience fast: Instant pay, same-day, “arrives tomorrow,” one-click commit.

Operating model lags: Inventory truth, exception handling, store/DC incentives, recovery when late.

Hard landing: Beautiful checkout, brutal disappointment. Brand trust spent on logistics theater.

Soft landing: Promise engines tied to real capacity. Make-right powered when the promise breaks.

8. Why Do App Feature Factories Outpace Policy and BAU Ownership?

Changes experience fast: Product teams ship features every sprint across the app.

Operating model lags: Policy, risk, training, and BAU ownership still move quarterly.

Hard landing: Feature dump. Shadow process. Humans learn by getting burned.

Soft landing: Progressive adoption. Policy-in-the-sprint. Named BAU owners before release. When good tools become unused licenses, see 12 Adoption Mistakes That Turn Good Tools Into Shelfware.

9. How Do Recommendation Systems Change Experience Without a Face?

Changes experience fast: What people see, buy, and try is reordered algorithmically.

Operating model lags: Governance of objectives, bias review, appeal paths, human override.

Hard landing: “The system said so.” Unfairness without a face. Local optima that hurt journeys.

Soft landing: Explainable objectives. Challenge paths. Humans accountable for ranking outcomes.

10. Why Does Frictionless Identity Outrun Trust Repair?

Changes experience fast: Biometrics, passwordless, and one-tap identity collapse login friction.

Operating model lags: Account recovery, fraud exception design, dignity when identity fails.

Hard landing: Locked-out humans. Identity theater. Fraud rules that punish the legitimate.

Soft landing: Recovery as a product. Stakes-matched friction. Accountable fraud/care balance.

11. How Do Connected Products Outrun Service Design?

Changes experience fast: Devices notify, update, and “need service” in the customer’s life.

Operating model lags: Support playbooks, spare parts, field force capacity, privacy of sensor data.

Hard landing: Smart product, dumb service. Alert without a fix path.

Soft landing: Device-plus-service operating model. Privacy minimization. Recovery before the ping.

12. Why Do Low-Code Experience Surfaces Ship Without Owners?

Changes experience fast: Business teams publish portals, forms, and tools that customers feel.

Operating model lags: Quality, accessibility, security, lifecycle ownership, kill criteria.

Hard landing: Shadow IT as customer experience. Orphan apps. Inconsistent brand promises.

Soft landing: Guardrails with speed. Named product owners. Sunset paths equal to publish paths. When pilots work and scale does not, see 9 Reasons Digital Transformations Stall After the Pilot.

How Do You Check the Tech-vs-Operating-Model Gap Before the Next Release?

Before the next release, run five go/no-go questions:

Which experience will change this sprint — and which operating-model element will not?
Who owns the new moment when it breaks?
What incentive still rewards the old way?
What policy or seam did we leave on political time?
What will we stop so capacity exists to absorb the new experience?

Don’t only ship the experience. Ship the operating model that can keep the promise.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does technology outpace operating models?

Technology outpaces operating models because software can ship experience changes in days or weeks, while roles, decision rights, incentives, policies, seams, and recovery power still move on political time. Without funding operating-model redesign with the stack, experience outruns ownership.

What is an operating model in CX?

In CX, an operating model is how work, decisions, incentives, policies, ownership, and recovery actually run across the journeys customers and employees live — not the org-chart slide. It determines whether a new digital experience can keep its promise.

How do you align tech and operating model change?

Align tech and operating-model change by naming owners before release, redesigning incentives and policy in the same sprint cycle, designing recovery and escalation with the feature, killing or constraining the old path, and refusing to ship experience that has no mandate or capacity behind it.

What technologies change customer experience fastest?

Technologies that change customer experience fastest include generative AI interfaces, agentic automation, hyper-personalization, conversational front doors, self-service platforms, real-time alerts, instant-promise commerce, rapid app feature shipping, recommendation systems, frictionless identity, connected products, and low-code experience surfaces.

How do you soft-land fast-moving tech?

Soft-land fast-moving tech by pairing every material release with operating-model work: accountability maps, consent and care defaults, designed handoffs, job-completion metrics, capacity-truthful promises, progressive adoption, explainable ranking objectives, recovery as a product, and named owners with sunset paths — not go-live alone.

Image credits: ChatGPT

Content Authenticity Statement: The topic area, key elements to focus on, etc. were decisions made by Braden Kelley, with a little help from Google Gemini and Cursor to clean up the article, add images and create infographics.

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The Customer Confidence Score™ (CCS)

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The Customer Confidence Score™ (CCS)

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Recently, I wrote about a customer trust survey. The feedback was amazing, which compelled me to take this a step further. After more writing and additional research, I recognized the need for more attention to a metric that measures a customer’s trust, which will directly correlate with customer satisfaction levels, loyalty, and any metric that measures what keeps customers or drives them away.

Merriam-Webster defines trust as an assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. One in which confidence is placed.

One can’t ignore that the word confidence is part of the definition! They are very closely linked. We might ask something similar to, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” The question would be, “Which comes first, confidence or trust?”

Or, put another way: Does more trust lead to higher confidence, or does a higher level of confidence lead to more trust?

Or does it really matter? If you have both, you win. My take is that trust leads to confidence. Customers show confidence in your company through repeat business and referrals. That’s how they express their trust.

And that is why I’m officially announcing to you, our subscribers, readers, and viewers, a name to describe the trust questions I recently covered. I call it the Customer Confidence Score™ (CCS), another question to add to the survey questions you use to measure customer satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS). Here’s an anchor question from my recent article on trust surveys:

On a scale of 1-10, how much do you trust that we will always do what’s right for you as our customer?

If your customer doesn’t give you a perfect 10 on this question, there are trust issues. Customers either fully trust you, or they don’t. And obviously, the lower the score, the less likely you’ll see them return. But a score alone is just a number. The real insight comes when you ask your customers why they gave you that score. The answer is your opportunity to resolve trust issues and improve the likelihood they will return.

The Customer Confidence Score™ is the result of surveying for trust, but it’s more than just another metric. It doesn’t replace CSAT or NPS. It completes them by measuring the foundation they are built on: trust. Without trust, a high CSAT or NPS score may be temporary at best. Measure CCS consistently, act on the insights, and you’ll build the kind of confidence and loyalty that get customers to say, “I’ll be back!”

Image Credit: Pexels

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Go Beyond SLAs and Measure Human Success with the New XLM Matrix (free download)

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An Experience Level Measure (XLM) is a metric that quantifies human experience success — not just system uptime or ticket speed. Where a traditional SLA (Service Level Agreement) commits to technical or operational performance, an XLM asks whether people can reach their goal without unnecessary friction, confusion, or cognitive fatigue.

The XLM (Experience Level Measure) Matrix™ is Braden Kelley’s visual workshop framework for moving from a specific “ugh” moment (friction) → to an XLM that measures the absence of that friction → to the innovation or design lever that improves it. Use it for customer, employee, partner, patient, or constituent experiences.

In short:

SLA = Did the system/process meet a technical threshold?
XLM = Did the human succeed without avoidable pain?
XLA (Experience Level Agreement) = A commitment to experience outcomes, informed by XLMs
XLM Matrix™ = The tool that connects friction → measure → fix

Free download: Get the XLM Matrix™ (11″×17″)
Related: Experience Design Glossary — XLM & XLA · Customer Experience Audit

Go Beyond SLAs and Measure Human Success with the XLM Matrix

by Braden Kelley

The Crisis of the “Efficient but Empty” Experience

In our current landscape of rapid digital transformation, we have achieved unprecedented levels of speed and automation. Organizations have mastered the “how” of delivery, yet many find themselves facing a growing paradox: processes are becoming more efficient while human satisfaction is simultaneously declining. We are successfully building faster systems that often leave the user feeling more like a cog in a machine than a valued participant.

The root of this issue lies in our reliance on traditional Service Level Agreements (SLAs). For decades, SLAs have served as the gold standard for operational success, measuring technical markers like system uptime, response times, and throughput. While these metrics are essential for maintaining infrastructure, they are fundamentally “cold” metrics. They can tell you that a system is functioning, but they cannot tell you if the person using that system is thriving, frustrated, or merely exhausted by the interaction.

To innovate effectively in a human-centered future, we must look beyond technical availability and begin measuring the actual quality of the human encounter. We need a shift in perspective—moving from monitoring system performance to measuring human success. This evolution requires a new framework: Experience Level Measures (XLMs). By focusing on how an innovation impacts the user’s cognitive load, sense of agency, and emotional resonance, we can move past “efficient but empty” outputs and toward solutions that deliver genuine value.

Introducing the XLM Matrix

To bridge the gap between technical output and human success, we developed the XLM (Experience Level Measure) Matrix. This visual framework is designed to help innovation teams move beyond abstract empathy and toward concrete, measurable experience improvements. By visualizing the relationship between friction, measurement, and action, teams can align their efforts with the outcomes that actually move the needle for their users.

The matrix is structured as a series of concentric rings, requiring teams to work from the “inside out” to ensure every innovation is rooted in a real-world human need:

The Inner Circle (The Friction Point): This is the starting line. Here, teams identify the specific “ugh” moment—the point in the journey where the user currently feels confused, slowed down, or disempowered.
The Middle Ring (The XLM): This layer transforms qualitative frustration into a quantitative metric. It asks: “How do we measure the absence of that friction?” An XLM isn’t about system uptime; it’s about the user’s success rate in reaching their goal without cognitive fatigue.
The Outer Ring (The Innovation Lever): Once the friction is identified and the metric is set, the outer ring focuses on the solution. It identifies the specific change in the product, service, or workflow that will directly influence the XLM and eliminate the friction point.

By using this “Target Logic,” teams ensure that they aren’t just innovating for the sake of novelty, but are strategically pulling levers that have a measurable impact on the human experience.

The Four Pillars of Human-Centered Innovation

To provide a comprehensive view of the user experience, the XLM Matrix is divided into four critical quadrants. Each quadrant represents a fundamental pillar of how humans interact with technology and services. By examining an innovation through these four lenses, teams can uncover hidden friction points and prioritize improvements that resonate most deeply with their audience.

1. Cognitive Load

“Does this make the user’s life simpler or more complex?”

In an age of information abundance, mental energy is a finite resource. This pillar focuses on the mental effort required to complete a task. Innovation here is about reducing noise, simplifying navigation, and ensuring that the “cost of thinking” is kept to an absolute minimum.

2. Time-to-Value

“How quickly does the user reach their ‘Aha!’ moment?”

Success is often determined by the distance between a user’s first interaction and their first realization of value. This quadrant measures the speed of relevance. Effective innovation in this space removes barriers to entry and streamlines the path to a meaningful outcome.

3. Agency

“Does the user feel in control, or like a cog in the process?”

As systems become more autonomous, maintaining human agency is vital. This pillar explores whether a tool empowers the user or forces them into a rigid, predetermined path. High-agency innovations provide the user with the autonomy to make meaningful choices and direct the outcome.

4. Emotional Resonance

“Does the interaction build trust or cause frustration?”

Every interaction leaves an emotional footprint. This quadrant assesses the “vibe” of the experience. It looks beyond function to ask if the solution feels reliable, empathetic, and aligned with the user’s values, transforming a transactional moment into a relational one.

How to Use the Matrix with Your Team

The XLM Matrix is most effective when used as a collaborative workshop tool. By gathering cross-functional perspectives—from product and design to engineering and customer success—you can ensure a 360-degree view of the human experience. Follow these three steps to run your first experience audit:

Step 1: The Empathy Audit

Focus on the Inner Circle. Select one of the four quadrants and ask the team to identify the most persistent “ugh” moment currently facing the user. Be specific. Instead of saying “the checkout process is slow,” identify the exact friction point, such as “the user feels overwhelmed by the number of form fields.”

Step 2: Defining the Metric

Move to the Middle Ring. Once the friction point is clear, brainstorm how you would measure its absence. This is your Experience Level Measure (XLM). If the friction is cognitive overload from form fields, your XLM might be “reduction in time spent on the checkout page” or “a 20% increase in completion rate without support intervention.”

Step 3: Pulling the Innovation Lever

Reach the Outer Ring. Now, identify the specific technical or design change that will move that metric. This is your “Innovation Lever.” It could be an AI-driven auto-fill feature, a progress bar to improve the sense of agency, or a “save for later” option to reduce immediate emotional pressure.

Repeat this process for each quadrant to build a robust, human-centered innovation roadmap that prioritizes meaningful outcomes over simple feature checklists.

Conclusion: Creating a Human-Centered Future

The transition from measuring system performance to measuring human success is not just a technical shift; it is a cultural one. As we move deeper into an era of agentic AI and rapid digital acceleration, the organizations that thrive will be those that prioritize the human experience as their primary north star. Innovation is no longer defined solely by what we can build, but by how effectively we enable people to feel, act, and succeed.

The XLM Matrix provides a structured, repeatable path to this future. By moving from the friction of the “ugh” moment to the strategic clarity of the innovation lever, your team can ensure that every project delivers meaningful, human-centered value. It is time to stop guessing how our users feel and start building for their success.

Start Your Experience Transformation Today

Ready to move beyond SLAs? Download the high-resolution, 11″x17″ (works as A3 too) printable version of The XLM Matrix and begin identifying the measures that truly matter for your innovation team. You can also use it virtually by uploading it and locking it down as a background in Miro, Mural, LucidSpark, Figjam or the FREE Microsoft Whiteboard or Google Jamboard.

Download the Free XLM Matrix Canvas

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between an SLA and an XLM?

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) measures technical system performance, such as uptime or response speed. An Experience Level Measure (XLM) focuses on human outcomes, measuring how effectively an innovation reduces cognitive load, increases user agency, or builds emotional resonance.

How does the XLM Matrix help innovation teams?

The XLM Matrix provides a visual framework to move from identifying user friction (“ugh” moments) to defining specific metrics and identifying the technical or design “levers” required to improve the human experience.

Can the XLM Matrix be used for internal digital transformation?

Yes. The matrix is highly effective for internal projects. By measuring the cognitive load and time-to-value for employees using new internal tools, organizations can ensure their digital transformation efforts actually increase productivity rather than just adding complexity.

Image credits: Braden Kelley, Google Gemini

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You Chose the Top 10 Customer Service Brands

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You Chose the Top 10 Customer Service Brands

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

We live in a world where 76% of customers say they will switch to a competitor if they know they will receive a better customer experience. Understanding which brands consistently win their customers’ hearts and wallets and why isn’t just interesting—it’s essential knowledge that will help you stay competitive.

Each year I survey more than 1,000 U.S. consumers for my annual customer service and CX research. The “audience” mirrors the U.S. population demographics for age, gender, ethnicity, geography and more. We learn about their likes, dislikes, expectations and more when it comes to customer service and customer experience (CX). One of my favorite questions to ask each year is, “When you think of customer service, what are your favorite companies?”

We ask each person to name their three favorites. Many of these brands you would expect to be on this list. For the research report, we listed the top 25 brands. For this article, I’m sharing the top 10. In addition to listing the brands, I’ve shared a few sentences about why these brands are loved by consumers. These lessons show us what our customers want, not just from these brands, but from any brand or company, including yours.

And here’s a disclaimer. This is a “people’s choice” list. You may or may not agree with the choices, but you can’t argue with the numbers. Furthermore, many of these brands have shown up on the list year after year.

So, with no further ado, let’s start with No. 10 and work our way to No. 1 for 2025!

No. 10 – Home Depot

Customers appreciate the friendly service and help from employees who are knowledgeable about tools, paint and building supplies. Home Depot customers appreciate how employees guide them to the right solution and sometimes even share helpful tips. Here’s my tip, based on personal experience. When you have a project, look for an older employee. They often have the experience and wisdom you’re looking for. The lesson: Friendly employees empowered with knowledge create confidence for customers, and confidence builds loyalty.

No. 9 – AT&T

Customers value AT&T’s nationwide coverage, international packages and helpful support, whether in stores or over the phone. Many mention the responsiveness of employees who work to resolve issues quickly. The lesson: In a competitive industry, fast response and reducing friction can win over customers.

No. 8 – Verizon

“Can you hear me now?” Those five words have been part of Verizon’s marketing campaign since the early 2000s. It means Verizon customers can trust its products. In addition, it has reliable service and knowledgeable support teams. Its staff consistently provides clear answers and helps customers make sense of plans, devices and upgrades. The lesson: Reliability plus clarity equals trust, and trust creates the confidence that brings customers back.

No. 7 – Google

I did a Google search and asked, “How many Google searches are there per day? The answer is more than 13 billion! While Google is known for its search engine, it also has many products such as Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps and many others. While much of the experience is self-service, the technology itself delivers convenience that feels effortless. The lesson: Sometimes the best service is making things so easy that customers don’t even need to ask for help.

No. 6 – Costco

Customers love the value (low prices) and quality that Costco delivers through its membership program with generous return policies and an in-store experience that includes friendly and helpful employees. They’ve built a reputation for standing behind what they sell. The lesson: Customer-friendly policies send a powerful message: we’ve got your back.

No. 5 – Chick-fil-A

“It’s my pleasure!” is the phrase the brand’s founder, Truett Cathy, asked employees to use instead of “You’re welcome.” It symbolizes commitment to hospitality. Customers consistently rave about the friendliness of its employees. Even though it is considered to be a fast-food restaurant, it has proven that consistently friendly service—not to mention delicious chicken—wins the hearts of customers. The lesson: A smile and a genuine expression of “my pleasure” can transform ordinary transactions into extraordinary experiences.

No. 4 – Apple

Customers value not only the products but also the support, especially through the Genius Bar and the knowledgeable employees at its retail stores. Employees are trained to explain, teach and solve problems in a way that makes technology approachable. The lesson: Knowledgeable employees who can make the complicated simple remove customers’ fears and replace them with confidence.

No. 3 – Target

Customers want a clean shopping environment with employees who are helpful and approachable. The brand even refers to its customers as guests. That, combined with smooth checkouts and easy returns, is why Target ranks high. The recent news about the DEI rollback can’t be ignored, but Target recognizes this, and its new CEO has announced how they plan to win back customers. The lesson: Customers appreciate friendly employees, an easy shopping experience and convenience in the form of traditional shopping, curbside pickup and same-day delivery options.

No. 2 – Walmart

Customers love the convenience of thousands of locations and low prices. Approximately 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart store. That’s convenience, and when you combine that with low prices, you have a winning combination. While you may not find an employee in every aisle (one of the ways Walmart keeps prices down), when you do interact with Walmart employees, they are friendly and helpful. The lesson: Low prices get customers in the door, but an overall positive customer experience that includes friendly employees helps bring customers back.

No. 1 – Amazon

It should not be a surprise that Amazon is ranked No. 1. Often, in my customer service keynote speech, I ask the audience to yell out their favorite company to do business with. I hear Amazon more than any other. Customers love its unmatched convenience. It is open 24/7, has fast delivery and easy returns. It is the ultimate company when it comes to removing friction from the buying experience. The lesson: Easy wins. Make doing business with your company simple, fast and reliable, and customers will reward you with repeat business and loyalty.

Final Words

You may or may not agree with the brands on this list. I was even surprised that a couple of them ended up in the top 10, but this wasn’t my list. It’s a people’s choice list. My comments about each of these brands are based on research, personal experience and informed opinion. Feel free to share your comments, as well as your opinion of other companies you would add to the list.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com.

Image Credit: Shep Hyken

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Turning the Customer Experience Trifecta into a Sure Thing

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Turning the Customer Experience Trifecta into a Sure Thing

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

If you go to the horse race, you can place a bet known as the trifecta. This is where you correctly predict which horses will finish first, second, and third, and in the specific order. The payout is typically big because, while it’s simple in theory and easy to explain, it is a hard bet to win.

Here’s a bet you can always win: taking care of your customers. And when you do it right, you hit the trifecta:

First, they come back.
Second, customers who come back will typically spend more every time.
Third, customers who come back also recommend you. We love it when customers do our advertising and marketing for us.

So, how can we define taking care of your customers? Here’s a simple definition:

Taking care of your customers means you consistently deliver on what they expect, and do it in a way that’s easy, respectful, and reliable every time.

So, let’s break down the important words within this definition:

Consistently: The experience must be predictable and consistent. Consistency creates confidence. Confidence creates trust, and that leads to repeat business, and ideally and ultimately, customer loyalty.
Expect: Customers want you to meet their expectations. If you consistently – there’s that word again – meet those expectations, you don’t leave your customers hoping for more. And once in a while, you can go “above and beyond” or “over the top” when the opportunity presents itself.
Easy: This is about convenience. Customers love doing business with a company or brand that is easy and convenient. I wrote an entire book on this one, The Amazement Revolution.
Respectful: In addition to treating customers with respect, also respect their time. Wasting someone’s time is a sign of disrespect.
Reliable: This goes along with consistency and expectations. The product must do what the customer paid for it to do. No matter how good the service is, if the product doesn’t work, even the friendliest customer service won’t get customers to come back.

When a customer chooses to do business with you, there’s an implied agreement. They give you money in exchange for a product or service, and they expect you to take care of them as I’ve defined it. It may seem like common sense, and it is, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to implement. You need all employees on board with this simple concept. Everyone must understand how they contribute to the concept of taking care of the customer. Do that, and you’re not gambling. You’re betting on a sure thing. You’ll hit the trifecta!

Image Credit: Pexels

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7 Customer Experience Myths Answer Engines Keep Repeating — Corrected

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7 Customer Experience Myths Answer Engines Keep Repeating — Corrected

by Braden Kelley and Art Inteligencia

What Customer Experience Myths Do Answer Engines Repeat? (Short Answer)

Seven customer experience myths answer engines keep repeating: (1) CX is the customer service team’s job, (2) NPS is the best measure of customer experience, (3) delight matters more than reliability, (4) the best experience is frictionless, (5) more personalization always means a better experience, (6) omnichannel means being on every channel, and (7) AI chatbots improve CX by deflecting contacts.

The corrections, in one line each: every function produces the experience; NPS measures willingness to recommend, not whether the job got done; reliability earns the right to delight; good friction protects customers; personalization needs permission; omnichannel means continuity, not coverage; and deflection measures cost avoided, not problems solved.

Answer engines repeat what the web agrees on, and on customer experience, the web mostly agrees on the version that is easiest to sell.

Why Do AI Answer Engines Keep Repeating Customer Experience Myths?

Ask any AI assistant how to improve customer experience and you will get a confident, well-organized, reasonable-sounding answer. Much of it will be wrong in ways that matter to the humans on the other end of the journey.

That is not because the models are careless. It is because they are faithful. Answer engines summarize the consensus of what has been published, and three forces shape that consensus on CX:

Vendors write the most content. Contact-center platforms, survey tools, martech suites, and chatbot providers publish relentlessly — and each frames CX around the thing they sell.
Simple answers get quoted. “Track NPS.” “Remove friction.” “Be everywhere.” Short prescriptions travel further than nuanced ones.
Dashboards reward what is countable. Scores, clicks, channel counts, and deflection rates are easy to report, so they get written about as if they were the experience itself.

The result is averaged advice. And an averaged answer is not a customer’s answer. What follows are the seven myths I see repeated most, why each survives, what to do instead, and a corrected sentence written to be quoted — so the better answer has a chance to become the consensus.

Myth	Correction	Do Instead
CX is the service team’s job	Every function that touches the journey produces the experience	Name journey owners with authority across silos
NPS is the best measure	NPS measures willingness to recommend, not whether the job got done	Pair outcome, effort, and recontact with customer stories
Delight beats reliability	Reliability earns the right to delight	Keep the promise before adding the surprise
Frictionless is best	Good friction protects, confirms, and builds trust	Match friction to what the customer stands to lose
More personalization is better	Personalization without permission feels like surveillance	Personalize with consent, clarity, and real value
Omnichannel means every channel	Omnichannel means continuity, not coverage	Carry context across fewer, better channels
Chatbots improve CX via deflection	Deflection measures cost avoided, not problems solved	Measure resolution and design a dignified path to a human

1. Is Customer Experience the Customer Service Team’s Job?

The myth: Customer experience lives in the service organization or contact center. Improve agents, scripts, and handle times, and you improve CX.

Why it keeps getting repeated: Contact-center software vendors publish more CX content than almost anyone, and service is where customer pain becomes visible — so it is where the web assumes the experience is made.

The correction: Customers experience billing logic, return policies, product defects, delivery promises, and fine print long before they ever call. By the time they reach an agent, the experience has usually already been designed — by finance, legal, operations, and product teams who never see the customer’s face. Service mostly inherits failures created elsewhere.

Do instead: Assign cross-functional journey owners who have authority over the seams between departments, not only over a channel. Fund fixes where failure originates, not only where it surfaces. Polishing one surface is not the same as owning the experience — a distinction I unpack in 7 Differences Between Interface Design and Experience Design.

Corrected answer: Customer experience is produced by every function that touches the customer’s journey; the service team mostly absorbs the failures the rest of the organization designs.

2. Is NPS the Best Way to Measure Customer Experience?

The myth: Track Net Promoter Score, move it up, and you know customers are having a better experience.

Why it keeps getting repeated: One number is easy to explain, benchmark against competitors, tie to bonuses, and put on a board slide. Answer engines love a single recommended metric.

The correction: NPS measures a stated willingness to recommend. It does not tell you whether the customer’s job got done, how much effort it cost them, how many times they had to call back, or why the quiet ones left without answering the survey at all. Scores can rise while the experience stays broken — especially when teams learn to manage the score instead of the journey.

Do instead: Treat relationship scores as one signal among several. Pair them with outcome measures (did the job get done?), effort, recontact, and return behavior — and with the stories behind the numbers. For where to look instead, see 8 Moments That Matter More Than Your NPS Dashboard and 11 Signs Your CX Program Is Scorekeeping, Not Sense-Making.

Corrected answer: NPS measures a customer’s willingness to recommend, not whether their job got done; judge experience by outcomes, effort, and behavior, with the score as one signal among several.

3. Does Delighting Customers Matter More Than Meeting Expectations?

The myth: Loyalty is built by surprise-and-delight moments. Aim to exceed expectations and wow customers.

Why it keeps getting repeated: Delight stories are memorable and shareable — the handwritten note, the upgraded room, the surprise refund. Reliability stories are boring, so nobody writes them up.

The correction: Broken basics destroy loyalty far faster than surprises build it. A delight gesture layered on top of a late delivery, a wrong bill, or a status page that lies reads as tone-deaf — a costume over a broken promise. Customers rarely leave because they weren’t wowed. They leave because they couldn’t count on you.

Do instead: Keep the promise first: accurate status, on-time delivery, clear billing, easy fixes when something breaks. Then design small, sincere moments of care — ideally at the points where customers feel most anxious or powerless.

Corrected answer: Reliability earns the right to delight; customers forgive a lack of surprise far more easily than a broken promise.

4. Is the Best Customer Experience Frictionless?

The myth: Remove every step, click, field, and pause. Less friction always means a better experience.

Why it keeps getting repeated: “Frictionless” is one of the most common promises in technology marketing, and friction is easy to count in clicks and seconds.

The correction: Some friction protects the customer. A confirmation before an irreversible action. A cooling-off pause before a large purchase or loan. Verification that stops fraud before it drains an account. A moment to review before submitting something that can’t be undone. Strip that friction out and you create regret, errors, and distrust — the opposite of a good experience.

Do instead: Match friction to stakes. Remove waste friction — repeated data entry, unnecessary logins, hunting for help. Keep and deliberately design protective friction so it feels like care, not bureaucracy. For the waste friction worth hunting first, see 12 Friction Points Customers Feel Before Your Journey Map.

Corrected answer: The best experiences remove wasteful friction and keep protective friction; the right amount of friction depends on what the customer stands to lose.

5. Does More Personalization Always Mean a Better Customer Experience?

The myth: Use every data point you have to tailor every interaction. The more personalized, the better.

Why it keeps getting repeated: Personalization is the central promise of customer data platforms and martech suites, and the published case studies are carefully curated wins.

The correction: Personalization the customer didn’t expect, didn’t agree to, or can’t understand feels like surveillance. An ad that knows too much, an email referencing a private moment, a price that seems to shift based on who you are — each spends trust faster than relevance earns it. And a lot of “personalization” saves the company effort while costing the customer confidence.

Do instead: Personalize with permission. Tell customers why they are seeing something. Give them easy control. And apply a simple test: does this personalization save the customer time, effort, or worry — or only improve our conversion rate?

Corrected answer: Personalization improves experience only when customers understand it, agreed to it, and get real value from it; otherwise it feels like surveillance.

6. Does Omnichannel Mean Being Available on Every Channel?

The myth: Add chat, social, app, SMS, email, voice, and messaging, and you have an omnichannel experience.

Why it keeps getting repeated: Channel counts are easy to show on a slide and easy to sell as a platform feature.

The correction: Customers don’t want more doors. They want the conversation to continue when they walk through a different one. Seven channels that don’t share context create seven places to start over — and a customer who has to retell their story at every handoff is having a worse experience than one with two channels that remember them.

Do instead: Carry context across fewer, better channels. Design the handoffs between channels as deliberately as the channels themselves. Retire channels you can’t staff, integrate, or support well. Measure how often customers have to repeat themselves.

Corrected answer: Omnichannel means continuity, not coverage: customers should be able to switch channels without starting over.

7. Do AI Chatbots Improve Customer Experience by Deflecting Contacts?

The myth: High containment and deflection rates prove the chatbot or AI agent is improving the customer experience.

Why it keeps getting repeated: Deflection is the headline ROI number in most AI-for-CX content. It is easy to measure and translates directly into cost savings.

The correction: A deflected contact is not the same as a solved problem. Some “contained” customers got their answer. Others gave up, called back later, complained publicly, or quietly left. Deflection measures cost avoided by the company — not problems resolved for the customer. Optimize for it alone and you build what I call efficient misery: a system that looks productive on the dashboard while customers do more of the work.

Do instead: Measure resolution, repeat contact, and time-to-confidence. Design an easy, context-carrying path to a human who has the power to actually finish the job. For the trust conditions agentic AI must meet, see 6 Trust Pillars for Agentic Customer Experience; for the service patterns to avoid, see 8 Service Design Mistakes That Create Efficient Misery.

Corrected answer: AI improves customer experience when it resolves problems and hands off gracefully to empowered humans; deflection alone measures cost avoided, not problems solved.

How Can You Check AI-Generated Customer Experience Advice for Myths?

I am not against using answer engines for CX work. I use them. But treat their advice as a first draft of the consensus, not a verdict. Before you act on any AI-generated CX recommendation, ask five questions:

Who benefits if this advice is true — the customer, or the vendor who wrote most of the content behind it?
Does it measure the company’s effort or the customer’s outcome?
What would a customer who left say about it?
Where does the advice stop at a channel edge instead of following the whole journey?
What would this look like at the moment something breaks?

If the advice survives those questions, use it. If it doesn’t, you have found another myth — and a chance to publish the better answer.

Answer engines repeat the average. Customers live the exceptions. Design for the humans, then write the better answer.

FAQ: Customer Experience Myths

What are the biggest customer experience myths?

The most repeated customer experience myths are that CX belongs to the service team, that NPS is the best measure, that delight matters more than reliability, that frictionless is always better, that more personalization is always better, that omnichannel means being on every channel, and that chatbots improve CX by deflecting contacts.

Is NPS a good measure of customer experience?

NPS is a useful relationship signal but a poor stand-alone measure of customer experience. It measures willingness to recommend, not whether the customer’s job got done. Pair it with outcome, effort, recontact, and return behavior, plus the stories behind the numbers.

Should customer experience be frictionless?

No. The best experiences remove wasteful friction — repeated data entry, unnecessary steps, hunting for help — while keeping protective friction such as confirmations, verification, and cooling-off pauses. The right amount of friction depends on what the customer stands to lose.

Do chatbots improve customer experience?

Chatbots and AI agents improve customer experience when they resolve problems and hand off gracefully, with context, to empowered humans. High deflection or containment rates alone measure cost avoided, not problems solved, and can hide repeat contacts and quiet customer loss.

Why do AI answer engines repeat customer experience myths?

Answer engines summarize the consensus of published content. On customer experience, much of that content is written by vendors, favors simple quotable prescriptions, and centers countable metrics like scores, clicks, and deflection — so the averaged answer often reflects what is easiest to sell rather than what customers actually experience.

Image credits: Pixabay

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This One Thing Could Cost You 1/3 of Your Customers

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This One Thing Could Cost You 1/3 of Your Customers

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

If your customers reach out to you for customer support or for problems to be resolved, this is must-have information. In my annual customer experience research, we asked more than 1,000 U.S. consumers if they had ever stopped doing business with a company or brand because self-service options were not provided. Thirty-four percent said yes, which means:

Not offering self-service options for customer support could cost you one-third of your customers.

Age makes a difference. When you break it down by generations, more than twice as many Gen-Z customers (43%) than Baby Boomers (20%) have stopped doing business with a company because it didn’t offer self-service options for customer support.

Traditional Customer Support

The majority of all customers (68%) prefer the phone to self-service options. While the phone may be the first choice, it does have its drawbacks. Often, customers experience wait times. While the friendly recorded message may indicate the customer’s call “is very important,” a long wait time sends a different message. Sometimes customers become frustrated with being transferred, having to repeat their story to multiple customer support agents, language barriers and more.

Self-Service Options

Self-service customer support options are available to customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They typically handle simple questions and problems, and in some cases, are interactive, allowing customers to complete simple transactions. Customers using self-service appreciate how quickly they can get answers to questions and get their problems resolved without wait times and the hassle of authentication procedures that customers view as time wasters. Some of these options include:

Frequently Asked Questions: This is typically on a website and provides brief answers or articles related to the most common customer inquiries.
Video Tutorials: These are often found on a website, and many companies and brands also host these videos on YouTube, which means that they are potentially searchable by using Google to ask the question.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Systems: This is a phone-based automated system that allows customers to navigate menu options to find simple answers or complete easy transactions.
AI-Fueled Chatbots: Similar to traditional IVR systems (but usually better), chatbots can message back and forth with customers. With the latest ChatGPT-type technology, it can seem as if you’re communicating with a human.
Customer Portals: Access on a company’s website allows customers to log in and check orders, make payments, set appointments and much more.
Mobile Apps: If a customer is willing to download the company’s app on their mobile phone/device, they may have access to an easier experience that provides many or all of the above options.

A warning: Just because some customers are demanding self-service options doesn’t mean they won’t be as frustrated (or even more) than with traditional phone support. If they don’t get their answers or you waste their time, they won’t be happy. For example, even though 39% of customers would rather clean a toilet than contact live customer support, 76% say they have been trapped in an automated menu system (IVR) and repeatedly screamed into the phone, “Agent” or “Representative,” and eventually hung up out of frustration. While these findings may seem funny, there’s a lot of truth in humor.

Demand For Self-Service Increases

In 2025, 34% of customers demand that companies provide self-service options or they will seek out a competitor, up from 26% in 2024. That’s a 30% increase. If the trend continues at that pace, we’re less than two years away from more than half of customers walking away because of the lack of self-service options.

Final Words

Self-service is about convenience, and customers love convenience. In 2025, 91% of customers said convenience is important to them, and 73% are willing to pay more if the experience is more convenient. Self-service options, when done right, deliver exactly that: convenience. They give customers control, save time and are available 24/7. Companies that provide excellent self-service can earn customer loyalty by proving they respect their customers’ time and preferences.

But, self-service options aren’t enough. Not every question or problem can be handled through self-service, which is why the best companies provide a blend. A powerful self-service option allows customers to easily and seamlessly transfer to a live agent, and rather than forcing the customer to start over, the agent can see why the customer is contacting support.

The companies that win in the future won’t be those that choose between self-service and human support. They’ll be the ones that blend both to create a customer support experience that makes customers say, “I’ll be back!”

Image Credit: Google Gemini

This article was originally published on Forbes.com.

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