---
title: "Customer Experience"
description: "82 posts about Customer Experience, summarised, each linking to the original."
---

# Customer Experience
> 82 posts about Customer Experience, summarised, each linking to the original.

## Articles

### [How AI is Transforming Customer Service Tech Stacks](https://yomu.fyi/post/how-ai-is-transforming-customer-service-tech-stacks.md)
- Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md)
- Published: Oct 5, 2026
- Type: Explainer

Customer service tech stacks have become fragmented and outdated, comprising many disconnected point solutions that slow teams and prevent fast, personal experiences. Recent advances in AI now enable a consolidated AI-first platform with AI at the core, empowering teams to analyze conversation data, spot trends, and deliver personalized support at scale using business and customer data. AI bots can first resolve repetitive queries 24/7, then build contextual experiences from historical data, and eventually take actions like setting up capabilities for customers. AI makes proactive engagement possible by detecting customer actions to preemptively unblock pain points, onboard users, and prevent friction. This shift improves metrics like customer satisfaction and operational efficiency and supports data-driven programs like Intercom’s Beyond CSAT to measure success.


### [The Ticket: Amplitude’s Jenna Elliott on navigating the future of customer success - The Intercom Blog](https://yomu.fyi/post/the-ticket-amplitude-s-jenna-elliott-on-navigating-the-future-of-custo.md)
- Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md)
- Published: Oct 5, 2026
- Type: Explainer

On The Ticket podcast, Intercom’s Declan Ivory interviews Amplitude’s Jenna Elliott about navigating AI-driven customer experience. Elliott argues a data-driven culture requires both qualitative and quantitative data to gauge team efficacy and identify areas for improvement, enabling targeted strategies that drive quicker value for customers. She highlights the balance between operational excellence and customer centricity, requiring a focus on KPIs and OKR frameworks as well as agile responsiveness to customer needs. AI should be implemented thoughtfully to complement rather than replace human interaction, boosting productivity and creating real value when integrated intentionally into the customer journey. New roles such as technical writers, customer journey designers, and strategists will emerge to ensure data is used in the right way to inform the customer journey.


### [The Ticket: Simon T. Bailey on the platinum service principles that create lifelong customers - The Intercom Blog](https://yomu.fyi/post/the-ticket-simon-t-bailey-on-the-platinum-service-principles-that-crea.md)
- Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md)
- Published: Oct 5, 2026
- Type: Explainer

The blog post recounts a podcast episode from The Ticket featuring Simon T. Bailey, author of Be the Spark, who discusses platinum service principles to create lifelong customers with Intercom VP of Customer Support Declan Ivory. Bailey’s pivotal realization came while sweeping streets at Disney, where he understood his true purpose was to create magical moments for families seeking a once-in-a-lifetime experience. He argues the platinum standard for customer service supersedes the gold standard by emphasizing personal connection, engagement, and making people feel valued rather than merely completing transactions. Key enablers include employee empowerment through recognition and sharing success stories, and leadership that avoids pitfalls like micromanagement while modeling the behaviors that enhance experience. Cultivating resilience and a genuine customer-love mindset drives loyalty, advocacy, and positive business outcomes, enabling teams to maintain high-quality service despite challenges.


### [Crossing the threshold: Exploring Intercom's Customer Service Trends Report for 2024 - The Intercom Blog](https://yomu.fyi/post/crossing-the-threshold-exploring-intercom-x27-s-customer-service-trend.md)
- Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md)
- Published: Oct 5, 2026
- Type: Explainer

Intercom’s 2024 Customer Service Trends Report surveyed over 2,000 professionals, and in a podcast episode of The Ticket, three Intercom support leaders discussed the findings. The report found that customer expectations have hit an all-time high, with 87% of support teams reporting increased demands, driven by the availability of high-quality AI chatbots. AI adoption is accelerating: almost half of support teams already use AI, and 70% of C-level executives plan to invest further in 2024. Support roles are evolving, with new positions such as conversation designers and analysts emerging, as humans complement AI for complex issues. The report also reveals that only 18% of professionals believe their existing tech stack covers all needs, leading to demand for integrated AI-centric platforms and a shift in metrics like average handle time.


### [CX leader Camille Acey on the evolving dynamics in customer service - The Intercom Blog](https://yomu.fyi/post/cx-leader-camille-acey-on-the-evolving-dynamics-in-customer-service-th.md)
- Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md)
- Published: Oct 5, 2026
- Type: Problem & solution

Camille E. Acey, a seasoned CX leader and consultant, describes the profound transformation underway in customer service, driven by AI, layoffs, and rising customer expectations. She advises startups to avoid over-hiring senior full-time roles and instead use fractional CX leaders who can establish strategy while junior or mid-level staff manage daily operations. Camille emphasizes that AI cannot replace human empathy and should be deployed first on repetitive, low-hanging tasks, preserving simpler issues for junior talent development. She notes that layoffs will degrade service quality unless leaders secure organizational buy-in, communicate resource impacts, and prioritize essential functions. Customer service teams must partner with product to prioritize requests that deliver the most value for the right target users, not fulfill every wish.


### [Turning the tide: CS expert Jo Causon on reviving customer satisfaction rates - The Intercom Blog](https://yomu.fyi/post/turning-the-tide-cs-expert-jo-causon-on-reviving-customer-satisfaction.md)
- Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md)
- Published: Oct 5, 2026
- Type: Problem & solution

UK customer satisfaction scores have fallen to 2015 levels, the worst drop since the national index began in 2008. Jo Causon, CEO of the Institute of Customer Service, attributes the decline to a perfect storm of recruitment and retention difficulties alongside technology that has not yet delivered on its promises. She notes that organizations spend roughly 20% of their time rectifying problems they created, a massive inefficiency. To reverse the trend, Causon advises embedding a service culture across every department, understanding the full customer journey, and proactively eliminating pain points rather than just handling complaints. Data shows that a 1% rise in employee engagement yields nearly a 0.5% increase in customer satisfaction, reinforcing that customer service must be an organization-wide priority.


### [Training the next generation of support leaders with Peak Support’s Hannah Steiman - The Intercom Blog](https://yomu.fyi/post/training-the-next-generation-of-support-leaders-with-peak-support-s-ha.md)
- Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md)
- Published: Oct 5, 2026
- Type: Explainer

Hannah Steiman, President of Peak Support, argues that leadership enablement is critical for support teams in high-growth companies, since many leaders lack formal training and must be developed internally. Key challenges include retraining agents from rule-following to proactive problem-solving, coaching using performance data like DSATs, and engaging teams to maintain motivation. Steiman emphasizes that skills such as proactive thinking, vision setting, transparent communication, and ethical decision-making can be taught and are essential for guiding teams through change. For change management, the best approach is gaining buy-in from key influencers, encouraging transparent feedback, and explaining reasoning behind changes. When implementing AI, Peak Support advises optimizing the knowledge base and automating existing processes first before adding AI to avoid overpaying and poor bot performance.


### [Leonard Berry and the eternal pursuit of service excellence - The Intercom Blog](https://yomu.fyi/post/leonard-berry-and-the-eternal-pursuit-of-service-excellence-the-interc.md)
- Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md)
- Published: Oct 5, 2026
- Type: Explainer

In this podcast interview, Leonard Berry discusses his book “On Great Service” and its framework for improving service quality based on research across ten diverse organizations. He argues that great service starts with hiring for values, not just talent, and investing in employee confidence to excel. Berry’s service strategy comprises four components: reliability, surprise (a wow factor), readiness for service recovery, and perceived fairness to stakeholders. Implementation depends on the right organizational structure, technology, and people, supported by a listening system to identify gaps. In an AI-driven world, organizations must balance high-tech solutions with high-touch human interactions, as AI complements but does not replace people.


### [The father of customer journey mapping, Chip Bell, talks driving innovation through customer partnership - The Intercom Blog](https://yomu.fyi/post/the-father-of-customer-journey-mapping-chip-bell-talks-driving-innovat.md)
- Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md)
- Published: Oct 5, 2026
- Type: Explainer

Chip Bell, author and co-developer of customer journey mapping, advocates for co-creation partnerships where customers become partners in innovation. By shifting from a transactional relationship to a partnership, companies can unlock customer creativity and unexpected breakthrough solutions. Bell recommends approaching inquiries with genuine curiosity, building trust through truth-telling and promise-keeping, and embracing daredevil learning that treats risk-taking as a learning venture. He contrasts AI’s limitations, stating it cannot replicate the human empathy and emotional depth that underpin genuine customer relationships. The key is to make customers feel welcomed to contribute, transforming them into co-creators of memorable experiences.


### [Your customers don't want an AI friend. They want an answer.](https://yomu.fyi/post/your-customers-don-t-want-an-ai-friend-they-want-an-answer.md)
- Company: [Twilio](https://yomu.fyi/company/twilio.md)
- Author: Jesse Sumrak
- Published: Oct 1, 2026
- Type: Problem & solution

A Twilio survey of 660 business leaders and consumers reveals a gap: 98% of organizations train AI to act more human, yet customers rank issue resolution, speed, accuracy, and availability above personality. Only 54% of consumers want human-like AI, versus 73% of brands. Behaviors customers call empathetic—acknowledging the specific situation, offering multiple solutions, using conversational language, offering compensation—depend on personalization and context, not tone. 51% of consumers find AI robotic, and 39% of businesses cite weak emotional understanding as a top dissatisfaction driver. The report recommends prioritizing context and personalization over personality, using tools like Twilio Conversation Memory and Conversation Orchestrator to make agents useful before charming.


### [7 new Brandwatch AI updates that make your life easier](https://yomu.fyi/post/7-new-brandwatch-ai-updates-that-make-your-life-easier.md)
- Company: [Brandwatch](https://yomu.fyi/company/brandwatch.md)
- Author: Nesibe Zirzakiran
- Published: Sep 29, 2026
- Type: Announcement

Brandwatch introduced seven AI-powered updates to help analysts, marketers, and social media managers keep pace with fast-moving online conversations. Iris AI features like Query Writer and Query Fixer streamline building comprehensive research queries by allowing a user to describe a topic through chat. The Ask Iris AI chat on the homepage and dashboards delivers instant summaries and topic breakdowns without requiring a pre-built query. Enhanced Alert and Signal emails now include AI-generated summaries so users can assess breaking stories or issues without reading individual mentions. Other updates include AI-generated categories for segmenting datasets, industry benchmarks for social performance, semantic search for YouTube creator discovery, and automated message classifiers in Engage.


### [86% of brands think their AI works. Only 51% of customers agree.](https://yomu.fyi/post/86-of-brands-think-their-ai-works-only-51-of-customers-agree.md)
- Company: [Twilio](https://yomu.fyi/company/twilio.md)
- Author: Jesse Sumrak
- Published: Sep 29, 2026
- Type: Problem & solution

A Twilio research report identifies a 35-point satisfaction gap: 86% of brands believe their AI customer service satisfies customers, but only 51% of consumers agree. The discrepancy arises because companies measure metrics such as conversation completion surveys and containment rates, which systematically exclude abandoned or unresolved interactions. 71% of consumers abandon a conversation when the AI fails to recognize them, yet those exits rarely appear in satisfaction data. 49% of consumers say AI never resolved their issue. To close the gap, Twilio recommends tracking abandonment by conversation stage, resolution of the underlying issue across sessions, repeat contact within seven days, containment split by outcome, and escalation quality.


### [The #1 AI behavior hurting your customers’ experiences](https://yomu.fyi/post/the-1-ai-behavior-hurting-your-customers-experiences.md)
- Company: [Twilio](https://yomu.fyi/company/twilio.md)
- Author: Jesse Sumrak
- Published: Sep 25, 2026
- Type: Explainer

91% of brands report a drop in customer satisfaction from AI, and the top behavior causing this is losing context when customers change channels, cited by 40% of businesses. Three of the four main behaviors are context-related, with lack of empathy at 39%, inability to handle exceptions at 38%, and failing to understand at 36%. The infrastructure problem includes session boundaries, identity mismatches, channel-specific tooling, and batch timing that prevent context from following the customer, causing 74% of consumers to repeat themselves and 71% to abandon conversations. Twilio’s structural solutions—Conversations, Conversation Memory, and Conversation Orchestrator—attach context to the customer rather than the session and recommend starting with the chat-to-voice transition. To measure improvement, track repeat-explanation rate after a channel change, recognition rate, and abandonment at transition points.


### [What is AI agent orchestration? How it works in 2026](https://yomu.fyi/post/what-is-ai-agent-orchestration-how-it-works-in-2026.md)
- Company: [Twilio](https://yomu.fyi/company/twilio.md)
- Author: Jesse Sumrak, Luke Morgan
- Published: Sep 25, 2026
- Type: Explainer

AI agent orchestration coordinates multiple AI agents working on a single task, deciding routing, carrying context, resolving contradictions, and escalating to humans when needed. It operates at two levels: the agent level, where frameworks like LangGraph route between specialized agents, and the conversational AI level, which preserves customer identity and history across Voice, SMS, and WhatsApp channels. Orchestration comprises four jobs: routing, shared memory and state, conflict resolution, and human escalation, with parallel execution requiring robust memory management. Twilio’s Conversation Orchestrator provides a shared conversation record as a system of record, while Conversation Memory extracts observations and resolves conflicts by updating records with the most recent version. The FAQ section addresses differences from workflow automation, comparison criteria for orchestration tools, and the mechanism for agent-to-human handoffs within the same session without callbacks.


### [How to design an AI-to-human handoff that preserves context](https://yomu.fyi/post/how-to-design-an-ai-to-human-handoff-that-preserves-context.md)
- Company: [Twilio](https://yomu.fyi/company/twilio.md)
- Author: Jesse Sumrak
- Published: Sep 22, 2026
- Type: Problem & solution

AI-to-human handoffs often fail because context is lost during transfer, forcing customers to repeat themselves. 76% of consumers report that human agents have little to no context about their issue, and 91% of brands have seen customer satisfaction drop due to AI missteps, with 40% attributed to context loss between channels. A cold transfer drops the customer into a new queue with nothing carried over, while a warm transfer briefs the receiving agent beforehand. Five steps to preserve context include defining escalation triggers early, specifying a payload with conversation history and customer profile, generating a three-line summary, maintaining context across channel changes, and writing back learned information to customer records. Measuring repeat-explanation rate and post-handoff resolution rate helps identify whether handoffs are working or if the AI is over-holding conversations.


### [More data won't make your AI smarter (here's what will)](https://yomu.fyi/post/more-data-won-t-make-your-ai-smarter-here-s-what-will.md)
- Company: [Twilio](https://yomu.fyi/company/twilio.md)
- Author: Jesse Sumrak
- Published: Sep 21, 2026
- Type: Problem & solution

Twilio research found that 99% of companies report something blocks them from understanding customers, with 48% citing connecting data across channels as the top obstacle. The problem isn’t data collection, which has succeeded, but the missing data activation layer that makes context usable in the eight seconds an AI agent has before a customer gives up. Twilio’s solution involves three elements: continuity across channels, real-time profile freshness, and retrieval of relevant history mid-conversation. Twilio Conversations treats touchpoints as a single lifecycle, Conversation Memory syncs new details in real time, and Conversation Intelligence surfaces approved documents alongside history. Twilio recommends starting small by picking one handoff where customers repeat themselves and making context survive it, rather than feeding the AI more data.


### [Announcing ‘The 2026 AI Sentiment Report’: How end users feel about AI Agents](https://yomu.fyi/post/announcing-the-2026-ai-sentiment-report-how-end-users-feel-about-ai-ag.md)
- Company: [Intercom](https://yomu.fyi/company/intercom.md)
- Author: Maia Bridi
- Published: Sep 9, 2026
- Type: Announcement

The 2026 AI Sentiment Report examines how end users feel about AI Agents in customer service and other uses such as shopping. Overall sentiment improved: 49% reported positive experiences, up nine percentage points from 2025, and that figure rose to 74% after respondents watched an Agent resolve a real query. Trust remains conditional, with 54% willing to trust AI with simple or routine issues but not complex ones involving discretion, privacy, continuity, accountability, or judgment. The research identifies easy escalation to a human and upfront disclosure that users are interacting with AI as the two leading ways to increase comfort, while trust also varies by channel, with chat strongest and social weakest. It concludes that businesses can treat trust as a design problem, including reassuring customers that shopping assistants serve their interests rather than merely the company’s financial goals.


### [4 must-ask questions before you delegate to your AI agent](https://yomu.fyi/post/4-must-ask-questions-before-you-delegate-to-your-ai-agent.md)
- Company: [Twilio](https://yomu.fyi/company/twilio.md)
- Author: Jesse Sumrak
- Published: Sep 3, 2026
- Type: Problem & solution

Automation roadmaps that prioritize ticket volume and low complexity can improve containment while lowering customer satisfaction when customers did not want a task automated. The post proposes four screening questions: how reversible a mistake is, whether the task touches money, health, or identity, whether the customer needs a transaction or to be heard, and whether the AI can access the necessary context. It cites a Twilio survey of 7,652 consumers, including 80% comfortable with appointment or reservation scheduling and 60% unwilling to have AI handle a medical inquiry. Tasks that fail the test can be split between AI and people: AI gathers information, verifies identity, retrieves history, and drafts a recommendation before a human decides, with Twilio Conversation Orchestrator handing conversation history and profile to Twilio Flex. The recommendation is to start with tasks where errors are relatively cheap and the data is available.


### [How to disclose AI to customers without killing the conversation](https://yomu.fyi/post/how-to-disclose-ai-to-customers-without-killing-the-conversation.md)
- Company: [Twilio](https://yomu.fyi/company/twilio.md)
- Author: Jesse Sumrak
- Published: Sep 1, 2026
- Type: Tutorial

Customer service teams may avoid disclosing AI because they fear customers will leave, but the post argues that unclear or delayed disclosure creates more frustration than honesty. It recommends a short first-turn greeting that says “AI,” explains what the agent can do, and offers an immediate route to a human, with renewed disclosure when a conversation moves to SMS or voice. Web chat, SMS, and voice examples show how to pair disclosure with an exit, while voice should disclose before the caller explains the issue and leave a pause. The post identifies burying the disclosure, using ambiguous labels, apologizing, over-explaining, and omitting escalation as failure modes. It proposes checking Twilio Conversation Intelligence transcripts alongside containment and escalation rates to assess wording changes, citing research on customer expectations and bypass behavior.


### [Your customers don't hate AI — they hate you lying about it](https://yomu.fyi/post/your-customers-don-t-hate-ai-they-hate-you-lying-about-it.md)
- Company: [Twilio](https://yomu.fyi/company/twilio.md)
- Author: Jesse Sumrak
- Published: Aug 31, 2026
- Type: Explainer

Twilio research reports a major gap between brands’ and consumers’ accounts of AI-agent disclosure: 81% of brands say agents identify themselves immediately, while only 22% of consumers report that experience. Teams may treat a system-prompt line, widget label, or one-time channel message as disclosure, even though customers can miss it or encounter a different experience on SMS or voice. Recommended practice includes naming “AI agent” at the first turn, repeating disclosure across channels, explaining accessible data and decision logic, and offering an immediate route to a person. It also recommends checking transcripts rather than trusting configuration, using conversation analysis to verify whether disclosure fired. Research cited says 76% expect identification at the start, 49% want data-access transparency, and 54% trust AI more when its logic is explained.


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