75% of consumers left frustrated by AI customer service: what support leaders need to fix in 2026
2025 was the year speed trumped resolution. The result: fast answers, unfinished problems, and shaky loyalty. A new 2026 CX Trends Report from Glance puts numbers to what many support teams felt all year.
If you own CSAT, FCR, or churn, the message is clear-stop chasing quick replies and fix the experience end to end. Resolution beats speed. Trust beats novelty.
What the data says
- 75% of consumers got fast AI responses that still left them frustrated.
- 68% say "Getting a complete resolution" is the most important outcome in support interactions.
- Nearly 90% report reduced loyalty when human support is removed.
- Only 7% rarely or never have to repeat themselves when switching channels.
- 34% say AI support made things harder; most prefer a human-first pathway.
- 44% always try self-service first and another 50% sometimes use it-appetite exists when it actually resolves issues.
The takeaway: customers want AI that resolves, not AI that deflects. If context drops, trust drops.
Why speed-first failed
- Bots were optimized to lower handle time, not to close loops.
- Personalization crossed into "creepy" because data was messy or mismatched.
- Workflows were brittle: broken handoffs, no shared context, agents starting from zero.
- Metrics rewarded response time over effort reduction and first-contact resolution.
As one executive put it, AI shouldn't replace people-it should set them up to deliver clarity, empathy, and trust at the moments that matter. And as the report notes, AI works best as a co-pilot rather than a gatekeeper.
The 90-day fix: from speed to resolution
Start small, ship fast, prove value. Here's a practical plan.
- Week 1-2: Baseline truth
Benchmark FCR, CES, repeat contact rate, and abandonment by channel. Tag tickets where customers had to repeat themselves and where AI handed off without context. - Week 3-4: Intent mapping
List top 20 intents by volume and friction. Mark which must be human-first, which can be AI-led with escalation, and which are ideal for full self-service. - Week 5-6: Escalation guardrails
Define clear "fail fast" rules: if confidence is low, the customer is upset, or the task is high stakes, escalate. Require warm transfers with full transcript and data. - Week 7-8: Context continuity
Pipe CRM, order, and prior interaction data into your bot and agent desktop. Kill re-auth loops. Ensure channel switches carry history automatically. - Week 9-10: Close-the-loop design
Rewrite flows to end with "resolved or scheduled" outcomes. Add cobrowse or screen share for complex journeys to cut ping-pong. - Week 11-12: Re-score and publish wins
Report lifts in FCR, CES, and handle time for escalations. Share callouts where AI + human pairing shortened time-to-resolution.
Design rules for AI in support
- Clean, consistent data
Centralize customer profiles and unify IDs. No context, no credibility. - Intent-aware automation
AI should know what it can solve, and when to escalate-automatically. - True context continuity
Carry transcripts, forms, and authentication across channels and devices. - Personalization that feels intentional
Use only data that helps resolve the issue. Explain why you're asking for info. - Empathy as a multiplier
Train agents to summarize the problem, confirm next steps, and set clear expectations. - Value metrics over vanity
Focus on retention, repeat engagement, FCR, and effort reduction.
Escalation that earns trust
- Tripwires: time in flow, low confidence, sentiment shifts, or high-value accounts trigger instant human help.
- Warm transfers: pass full context, not just a ticket number. Keep the customer in the same session if possible.
- Visual collaboration: use cobrowse or guided sessions to resolve complex steps without endless back-and-forth.
If your team needs a framework for guided, human-to-human support inside apps and sites, explore solutions like cobrowsing and guided CX. Learn more at glance.cx.
Rethink your scorecard
- Customer Effort Score (CES): track effort by journey, not just by channel. Lower effort → higher loyalty. For background on why effort matters, see this classic analysis from HBR: Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers.
- First-Contact Resolution: measure across AI + human, not in silos.
- Time-to-Resolution: prioritize completion time over response time.
- Retention and repeat engagement: tie support outcomes to revenue signals.
What this means for support leaders
Customers will start with self-service if it works. They'll become loyal when you make hard things easy and hand them to a human at the right moment. The mandate for 2026 is simple: fix the foundation, build AI that resolves, and let people do what they do best-clarity and empathy.
For teams upskilling on AI-assisted support, prompt quality, and automation basics, browse these practical resources: AI courses by job and prompt engineering guides.
Get the full report
Download the complete analysis, data, and recommendations here: 2026 CX Trends Report.
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