self-service | Human-Centered Change and Innovation

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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Why Some Customers Resist AI

Our research finds that age makes a difference. For example, Baby Boomers show the strongest preference for human interaction, with 82% preferring the phone over digital solutions. Only half (52%) of Gen-Z feels the same way about the phone. Here’s why:

Lack of Trust: Trust is another concern, with almost half (49%) saying they are scared of technologies like AI and ChatGPT.

Privacy Concerns: Seventy percent of customers are concerned about data privacy and security when interacting with AI.

Success — Or Lack of Success: While I think it’s positive that 50% of customers surveyed have successfully resolved a customer service issue using AI without the need for a live agent, that also means that 50% have not.

Customers aren’t necessarily anti-technology. They’re anti-ineffective technology. When AI fails to understand requests and lacks empathy in sensitive situations, the negative experience can make certain customers want to only communicate with a human. Even half of Gen-Z (48%) says they are frustrated with AI technology (versus 17% of Baby Boomers).

Why Some Customers Embrace AI

The 34% of customers who prefer self-service options to the point of saying they are willing to stop doing business with a company if self-service isn’t available present a dilemma for CX leaders. This can paralyze the decision process for what solutions to buy and implement. Understanding some of the reasons certain customers embrace AI is important:

Speed, Convenience and Efficiency: The ability to get immediate support without having to call a company, wait on hold, be authenticated, etc., is enough to get customers using AI. If you had the choice between getting an answer immediately or having to wait 15 minutes, which would you prefer? (That’s a rhetorical question.)

24/7 Availability: Immediate support is important, but having immediate access to support outside of normal business hours is even better.

A Belief in the Future: There is optimism about the future of AI, as 63% of customers expect AI technologies to become the primary mode of customer service in the future — a significant increase from just 21% in 2021. That optimism has customers trying and outright adopting the use of AI.

CX leaders must recognize the generational differences — and any other impactful differences — as they make decisions. For companies that sell to customers across generations, this becomes increasingly important, especially as Gen-Z and Millennials gain purchasing power. Turning your back on a generation’s technology expectations puts you at risk of losing a large percentage of customers.

What’s a CX Leader To Do?

Some companies have experimented with forcing customers to use only AI and self-service solutions. This is risky, and for the most part, the experiments have failed. Yet, as AI improves — and it’s doing so at a very rapid pace — it’s okay to push customers to use self-service. Just support it with a seamless transfer to a human if needed. An AI-first approach works as long as there’s a backup.

Forcing customers to use a 100% solution, be it AI or human, puts your company at risk of losing customers. Today’s strategy should be a balanced choice between new and traditional customer support. It should be about giving customers the experience they want and expect — one that makes them say, “I’ll be back!”

Image credit: Pixabay

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com