say a company is only as good as its customer service. “And the bar is rising — that’s a staggering nine percentage points higher than in our 2025 report,” said Genesys researchers. All the while, 42 percent of consumers said they stopped buying from a brand after a poor customer service experience, while 43 percent said they spent less with a brand that failed to meet CX expectations. “In today’s experience economy, CX has a direct impact on customer loyalty, lifetime value and brand equity,” said the report. Perhaps most important to CX leaders, 95 percent of consumers say it’s important for a company to move their interaction from one channel to another and pass along information already shared. Yet more than half of CX leaders said their companies still do not pass previously collected information to a representative or agent during a customer interaction. Perhaps that’s not surprising considering that only 31 percent of CX infrastructure is fully in the cloud, showed the Genesys findings, a percentage that remains unchanged from the 2025 report. “This matters because many of the most advanced CX capabilities — critical to equipping organizations to meet rising customer expectations and deliver truly outstanding experiences — depend on being in the cloud and having a modern CX platform that can orchestrate experiences,” argued the report. AI-powered tools, real-time analytics, integrated data and crosschannel routing are difficult to scale when systems remain fragmented or constrained by legacy infrastructure, the report continued. “Agentic orchestration raises the stakes further, because AI must be able to act, consistently, across the same connected environment it uses to understand the customer.” None of which is lost on CX executives, who are quickly learning that legacy systems can make it hard to Top Strategic CX Priorities for Next 12 to 24 Months 1 Increasing customer value and loyalty 2 Attracting, developing and retaining top CX talent equipped to work effectively alongside AI 3 Modernizing the CX technology stack to support cloud, AI and future innovation 4 Scaling AI adoption across customer experience 5 Expanding the use of AI-powered self-service and virtual agents 6 Automating CX workflows and processes with AI Source: Genesys Consumer Expectations with Customer Experiences 76% Expect AI to improve the quality and speed of customer service in next two to three years 75% Expect AI to improve the personalization of customer service in next two to three years 95% information already shared 91% Say a company is only as good as its customer service 90% Define a company by its service 57% Would definitely or probably switch to a competitor after experiencing a lack of empathy in a customer service interaction 85% Have spent less or stopped purchasing from a brand after poor customer service 84% Will give a virtual agent just three attempts to resolve an issue 43% Spent less with a brand after a poor customer service experience 42% Stopped buying from a brand after poor customer service experience Source: Genesys CX Leaders Three-year AI Outlook 86% Expect AI to be part of every customer interaction 84% Expect customers to manage their own needs without interacting with a person 90% Expect a significant portion of routine CX tasks to be automated 73% Expect customers will be unable to discern the difference between human and AI-powered CX agents Source: Genesys Top AI Challenges for CX Organizations 46% Keeping up with pace of AI innovations 46% Managing and maintaining data for use with AI 44% Readiness and technical ability to adopt AI at scale 42% Demonstrating AI return on investment 40% Having the right technical skill to implement AI Source: Genesys Top Strategic CX Priorities for Next 12 to 24 Months 1 Increasing customer value and loyalty 2 Attracting, developing and retaining top CX talent equipped to work effectively alongside AI 3 Modernizing the CX technology stack to support cloud, AI and future innovation 4 Scaling AI adoption across customer experience 5 Expanding the use of AI-powered self-service and virtual agents 6 Automating CX workflows and processes with AI Source: Genesys Consumer Expectations with Customer Experiences 76% Expect AI to improve the quality and speed of customer service in next two to three years 75% Expect AI to improve the personalization of customer service in next two to three years 95% information already shared 91% Say a company is only as good as its customer service 90% Define a company by its service 57% Would definitely or probably switch to a competitor after experiencing a lack of empathy in a customer service interaction 85% Have spent less or stopped purchasing from a brand after poor customer service 84% Will give a virtual agent just three attempts to resolve an issue 43% Spent less with a brand after a poor customer service experience 42% Stopped buying from a brand after poor customer service experience Source: Genesys CX Leaders Three-year AI Outlook 86% Expect AI to be part of every customer interaction 84% Expect customers to manage their own needs without interacting with a person 90% Expect a significant portion of routine CX tasks to be automated 73% Expect customers will be unable to discern the difference between human and AI-powered CX agents Source: Genesys Top Strategic CX Priorities for Next 12 to 24 Months 1 Increasing customer value and loyalty 2 Attracting, developing and retaining top CX talent equipped to work effectively alongside AI 3 Modernizing the CX technology stack to support cloud, AI and future innovation 4 Scaling AI adoption across customer experience 5 Expanding the use of AI-powered self-service and virtual agents 6 Automating CX workflows and processes with AI Source: Genesys Consumer Expectations with Customer Experiences 76% Expect AI to improve the quality and speed of customer service in next two to three years 75% Expect AI to improve the personalization of customer service in next two to three years 95% information already shared 91% Say a company is only as good as its customer service 90% Define a company by its service 57% Would definitely or probably switch to a competitor after experiencing a lack of empathy in a customer service interaction 85% Have spent less or stopped purchasing from a brand after poor customer service 84% Will give a virtual agent just three attempts to resolve an issue 43% Spent less with a brand after a poor customer service experience 42% Stopped buying from a brand after poor customer service experience Source: Genesys CX Leaders Three-year AI Outlook 86% Expect AI to be part of every customer interaction 84% Expect customers to manage their own needs without interacting with a person 90% Expect a significant portion of routine CX tasks to be automated 73% Expect customers will be unable to discern the difference between human and AI-powered CX agents Source: Genesys Top AI Challenges for CX Organizations 20 CHANNELVISION | FALL 2026
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