A customer’s insurance claim has been rejected, and she doesn’t understand why. She visits the broker’s website and is greeted by a chatbot. It offers links to FAQs. She types “speak to a person”. It offers more links. She tries the phone number on the website, which leads to an automated menu that eventually tells her to visit the website. Forty minutes later, furious, she posts a scathing review.
The broker hadn’t set out to frustrate anyone. It had introduced automation to save staff time and give customers faster answers. For simple questions, it worked. But nobody had designed what should happen when the automation couldn’t help.
This is the single biggest worry customers have about automated and AI-powered service, according to a large survey. It’s also one of the easiest to fix.
One Like insight: Automation earns trust when customers know they can always reach a person.
What customers fear
In July 2024, the research firm Gartner published the results of a survey of 5,728 customers conducted in December 2023. It found that 64% of customers would prefer that companies didn’t use AI in their customer service. More than half said they would consider switching to a competitor if they learned a company was going to use AI for customer service.
When asked what worried them, customers’ top concern, cited by around 60%, was that AI would make it harder to reach a person. Other concerns included AI displacing jobs, AI giving wrong answers, data being less secure and AI treating customers unequally.
Gartner’s Keith McIntosh noted that once customers have exhausted self-service options, they’re ready to speak to a person, and that many fear AI will become just another obstacle in the way. Gartner’s recommendation was clear: AI tools should tell customers they’ll be connected to an agent if the AI can’t solve the problem, and then hand over smoothly, with the agent picking up where the chatbot left off.
The survey was conducted before generative AI tools had matured, and attitudes may shift as experiences improve. Gartner also sells advice to companies adopting AI. But the core concern, being trapped with no way to reach a human, is easy to understand and has been echoed in many other surveys and in everyday experience.
Designing a human escape hatch
For small businesses, keeping a route to a person is often easier than for large companies, and it can be a genuine competitive advantage.
Make the human option visible. Show a phone number, WhatsApp number or “talk to us” option clearly, not buried behind menus or FAQs.
Let the bot hand over gracefully. If you use a chatbot, set it up to offer a person after one or two unsuccessful attempts, or whenever a customer asks. Tell customers how and when they’ll hear back.
Pass on the context. When a conversation moves from automation to a person, make sure the person can see what has already been said, so the customer doesn’t have to repeat themselves. As we explored in Make It Easy, repetition is one of the biggest sources of customer frustration.
Route sensitive situations straight to people. Complaints, bereavements, financial difficulty, safety issues and anything emotional should bypass automation entirely where possible.
Be honest about what’s automated. Customers generally accept automation when they know what they’re dealing with and trust they can escalate.
Test it yourself. Regularly try to reach a person through every channel, as a customer would. If it’s hard for you, it’s harder for them.
[Infographic placement] Customers’ biggest concerns about AI in service. A horizontal bar chart from Gartner’s survey: Harder to reach a person (about 60%) · AI displacing jobs (about 46%) · Wrong answers (about 42%) · Less secure data (about 34%) · Unequal treatment (about 25%). Beneath: 64% would prefer companies didn’t use AI in customer service. Caption: Gartner survey of 5,728 customers, December 2023, published July 2024.
Testing your own escape routes
Spend twenty minutes this week acting as a frustrated customer. Try to reach a real person through your website, chatbot, phone line, email, WhatsApp and social media. Time how long it takes and note every obstacle. Then remove the biggest one. In many small businesses, a single change, like a visible phone number or a chatbot that offers a person after two attempts, transforms the experience.
A few questions can help:
- How quickly can a customer reach a person through each of our channels?
- Does our automation hand over to a person when it can’t help?
- Do people taking over a conversation see what the customer has already said?
- Are complaints and sensitive issues routed straight to a person?
Which brings us back to the frustrated customer and her rejected claim. The broker’s chatbot handled hundreds of simple questions perfectly well. The damage came from one missing feature: a clear, quick route to a person when the bot couldn’t help. Adding a “speak to a person” button that led to a WhatsApp callback within the hour would have turned a scathing review into a solved problem, and probably a grateful customer.
Sources
- Gartner, “Gartner Survey Finds 64% of Customers Would Prefer That Companies Didn’t Use AI For Customer Service”, press release, 9 July 2024. Breakdown of concerns as reported by DIGIT and others.
