Summarize this page with popular models
Summarize this page with popular models
Why CX Leaders are still too far from the conversation to reverse the downward trend in support satisfaction
5 minute read
Customer support has been ever-obsessed with the classic indicators of customer satisfaction, resolution time, CSAT scores, and the like. We even wrote about how those indicators are in flux (read all about it here).
But concerning statistics (as cataloged in The 2025 National Customer Rage Survey) show that customers are feeling more ire than ever. So if CX leaders claim to be obsessed with improving KPIs, why is the yelling getting louder?
These surveys on customer rage and patience are telling us part of the story, but they can't really tell us what needs to be done. We know that we're not seeing more satisfied customers; we're seeing an increase in frustration and impatience. All these issues were meant to be addressed by solutions like AI, but that doesn't seem to be happening.
We want to understand! But we're not quite listening. Companies large and small treat emotional experience as a soft, secondary metric. It's perhaps unsatisfying to attempt to catalog something so squishy. Happy/unhappy is much easier to quantify.
But “Patty is freaking out because the app that gets her into her building is broken, and now she's locked out and can't feed her dog” is not easily quantifiable or generalizable.
This sounds like a no-brainer, but the statistics tell me it bears repeating: In the experience and support process, treating people like people should be the goal of every encounter, be it human-to-human or AI-to-human.
Of those complaining, 70% say they want more than just a monetary solution to their problem. They want apologies, clear explanations of why the problem happened, assurances of change, and, above all, to be treated with dignity and empathy.
When asked about their satisfaction, customers will place as much importance on how they felt about the interaction as they will on how objectively effective it was.
These feelings are what impact churn, escalation, and yes, blind rage, yelling, and threats. If we don't consider ways to intervene in the moment, or how we can tug people back onto the happy path at scale, then what real impact do the after-the-fact numbers actually have?
If this seems dramatic or too “feely,” consider that 32% of customers say that they feel significant emotional stress after a support experience. That damages your brand and has far-reaching consequences.
It would be tempting to place rising dissatisfaction at the feet of increased automation and applied AI, but it's more complex than that. The Metrigy Research 2025 consumer survey finds that a vast majority of customers are comfortable with voice AI agents when two basic expectations are met: either their issue is resolved, or they can seamlessly escalate to a human when it isn't.
That tells us that rage and dissatisfaction are the result of a design failure, rather than the mere presence of AI or automation. The Consumer Patience Index backs this up: 84.9% of people interviewed said they would be happy to keep interacting with automated support as long as it reliably helped them solve their problems.
To come back to the issue of design, these results tell us that people don't hate bots; they hate bad bots. Ones that send them in loops, or close out conversations before resolution, or never escalate a complex issue to a human who can actually solve it.
Roughly 80% of those interviewed by Metrigy are comfortable with voice AI, as long as the system results in either an escalation or a resolution. Their objection isn't philosophical at all.
As Bryan Martin, CTO at 8x8, said in a recent blog post, “Every conversation builds or erodes trust. Humanity remains at the center of all experiences, because the measure of success is emotional as well as quantitative.”
A voice AI that can pivot or escalate in response to nuance, context, and tone is valuable, and the stats show it is effective. But if that bot is failing, angering people, or solving things too late, then we know we have a problem. Still, our KPIs are built to score conversations after they've ended, so they can only confirm that problem rather than turn it around.
12% of people said they'd rather text an ex than be put on hold by an agent, human or otherwise. One in 10 would literally choose the emotional turmoil of a former flame rather than the emotional turmoil of a support call? Something is rotten in the state of CX.
This is why pivoting our focus to the conversation, to making it count, is crucial. Dignity is deliverable in the back-and-forth. A generic email after the fact, or a de-escalation line that they've heard a thousand times before, is more likely to inspire rage than alleviate it.
Negativity is at a record high, yes, but all the stats in the world can't direct us in the moment to which conversations are about to become glaringly red data points. Just measuring the end result is like reading the last page of a book and skipping the rest. We need ways to simultaneously record, analyze, and intervene at scale, to read the book cover to cover.
The emotionally satisfying results people seek—reassurance, apology, dignity—are infinitely more effective when they're delivered inside the live conversation.
If all this pathos doesn't do it for you, we can move on to the logos of it all. The CCMC calculates that unsatisfying resolutions risk $596 billion in revenue. Incapacity bears a hefty price tag.
Rage is a reflection of a designed system that provides too much distance and too little humanity. We have built excellent instruments for measuring rage from far away. Visibility and strategic intervention are what treat the well-quantified symptoms.
While it's tempting to hyperfixate on the negative (floods of notes from agents fielding endless calls from frustrated customers), there's also an opportunity here. We can use this data to figure out how to improve, because even with AI everywhere one looks, customer experience is still a huge differentiator.
The opportunity lies in that context, and in using it to better understand not just pain points but also to add detail to our maps of customer histories and preferences. We can put all that detail to work and create customer experiences that aim to delight and engage, not enrage.
The conversation only counts when we act on it.
Global Vice President, Product Management for Contact Center, 8x8
Lisa Orford is Global Vice President of Product Management for Contact Center at 8x8, where she leads the evolution of the company's contact center strategy and keeps its unified communications and contact center portfolio tightly aligned with real-world market needs. With more than 20 years spanning contact center operations, telecoms, and product leadership, she brings a rare end-to-end view of how CX technology performs in practice. Since joining 8x8 in 2015, Lisa has held senior roles including Product Director and VP, shaping product strategy, driving growth, and supporting acquisitions – building on a path that started on the contact center front line and led to founding and scaling her own communications business. She's focused on humanizing customer interactions and applying AI to enhance empathy and productivity rather than replace the human element, helping organizations turn emerging technology into measurable outcomes.
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