Have human interactions become the new premium retail experience?

AI adoption for customer service is accelerating. Not only is it seen as a solution for making interactions faster and more efficient, but it is also seen as an investment to ultimately cut overheads in the face of increasing wage bills and tax burdens. The pace of transformation is so fast, in fact, that Gartner predicts Agentic AI will autonomously resolve 80% of common customer service issues without human intervention by 2029.

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should – at least not until it can be embedded seamlessly into the customer experience. It’s not uncommon to have been frustrated by unintuitive, unhelpful chatbots and, despite 83% of consumers preferring to speak to a real person, the opportunities to do so are few and far between.

Consumers still exercise choice

To add insult to the injury of not being able to engage with customer service in the way they’d prefer, consumers are faced with poor quality AI interactions – and that’s costing businesses. A study from CEBR and Trustpilot revealed that poor experiences may have cost UK retail firms as much as £8.6bn in the previous 12 months, with two-thirds of consumers lessening their interactions with a business as a result of AI.

To read the full published article by Daniel Todaro, CEO, Gekko Group, please visit Retail Sector