1 in 4 Owners Say AI Is Costing Them Clients: What That Means for Customer Support in 2026
A new UPrinting survey shows a split response to AI across small businesses. Opportunity on one side, pressure on the other. For support leaders, the message is clear: AI can scale service, but trust and human judgment decide who wins in 2026.
- 25% lost business last year as customers used AI tools instead of paid services
- 65.5% worry AI will make their business feel less personal or authentic
- 54% of owners earning $150K+ say AI could help most right now in customer support
- 20% of Gen Z owners are very worried about AI-driven misinformation
- 50% of senior managers won't hand hiring or performance decisions to AI
- 46% say AI could help most in marketing content
AI Is Now the Competition. Service Is Your Edge.
Customers are skipping pros and asking a model for answers. That same instinct carries into support: they expect instant, self-serve results. If your help center, chatbot, and macros don't deliver fast, clear outcomes, they'll bounce.
Your counter move isn't to fight AI-it's to outperform it on what AI lacks. Context, empathy, and trustworthy resolution. Ship faster self-serve, then make human handoffs unmistakably better: judgment, reassurance, and accountability.
Keep the Human Signal Strong
Two-thirds worry AI makes business feel less personal. You feel that on the front lines when a "perfect" answer still lands as cold. Authenticity isn't a slogan; it's visible choices in your workflow.
- Use AI to draft. Let humans finalize tone, edge cases, and policy nuance.
- Label bot experiences clearly. Offer a one-click path to a human.
- Adopt a short style guide for warmth, clarity, and empathy in every reply.
- Measure "time to empathy" and "quality of resolution," not just handle time.
High Earners Are Betting on Support AI-With Guardrails
More than half of higher-earning owners see the biggest AI lift in support. That tracks: once you scale, responsiveness breaks first. Smart automation fixes the basics and frees humans for the hard stuff.
- Route by intent, not keyword. Auto-handle simple flows with tight guardrails.
- Warm handoffs: pass context, history, and sentiment to agents automatically.
- Track deflection quality, not just deflection rate. Bad deflection drives churn.
- Review bot transcripts weekly. Promote proven flows, kill confusing ones.
Marketing + Support: One Content Engine
Nearly half say AI helps most with marketing content. Support wins by using the same engine. Every solved ticket is a draft for macros, help articles, release notes, and post-resolution emails.
- Turn your top 50 FAQs into AI-assisted macros and public help docs.
- Push "known issues" banners to reduce ticket volume during incidents.
- Use printed inserts, packaging notes, or QR cards to set expectations and reduce how-to tickets.
Misinformation Is a Service Risk. Treat It Like One.
One in five Gen Z owners are very worried about AI-fueled misinformation. You'll see it as incorrect expectations, fake screenshots, and off-brand "advice" customers found online.
- Publish a living "source of truth" page and cite it in replies.
- Auto-flag tickets referencing known false claims for priority handling.
- Adopt an internal risk checklist based on frameworks like the NIST AI Risk Management Framework.
- Be transparent when AI assists a reply-customers value honesty more than perfection.
AI Can Inform People Decisions, Not Make Them
Half of senior managers don't want AI deciding hiring or performance. Good. In support, use AI to summarize and surface patterns, then let humans judge.
- Use AI for coaching insights: common friction points, sentiment shifts, and quality trends.
- Keep human calibration sessions monthly. Score a shared set of tickets together.
- Document how AI suggestions are used, ignored, or revised to prevent bias creep.
Your 90-Day Plan for 2026-Ready Support
- Week 1-2: Map your top contact intents and attach a clear "best next action" for each.
- Week 3-4: Ship three high-confidence bot flows with instant human escape hatches.
- Week 5-6: Rewrite 25 macros with AI drafts; humans finalize tone and policy.
- Week 7-8: Stand up a misinformation playbook and a single source-of-truth page.
- Week 9-10: Add quality metrics: resolution clarity, empathy, and deflection accuracy.
- Week 11-12: Run a coaching sprint using AI summaries; calibrate with real tickets.
What This Means for 2026
Self-serve will be assumed. Human support will be judged on judgment and tone. Trust-how you make decisions, how you explain them, and how quickly you correct mistakes-will be your advantage.
Put AI in the background to reduce wait time and repetitive work. Put people front and center for nuance, fairness, and credibility. Do that, and you won't just keep up-you'll earn loyalty while others chase shortcuts.
Helpful resources
About the survey
This research was conducted by UPrinting, a commercial printing and print marketing company that works with small businesses. UPrinting surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults via Pollfish, including small business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs across industries. Responses were analyzed by age, income, and role to surface differences in concerns and opportunities around AI.
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