– Global Study Shows 81% of Customers Still Rely on Direct Interaction with Humans to Fix Issues
SALT LAKE CITY [April 10, 2025] – Pearl-Plaza®, the leading provider of integrated Experience Improvement (XI)™ solutions, announced the results of a global consumer study that reveals a widening disconnect between what customers expect and what brands are delivering. Despite years of investment in automation and AI, most customers still want real human support—and they want it fast, accurate, and on their terms.
According to the study of more than 1,200 consumers, 81% say they still need to interact with a company to resolve issues, signaling that self-service channels are falling short. And when customers do reach out, 61% expect resolution the first time, or they’ll start considering competitors.
“Contact center leaders are under pressure to do more with less, but customers aren’t lowering their expectations,” said Jeff Catlin, EVP of AI Products at Pearl-Plaza. “Customers want to be understood, responded to quickly, and treated like people—not tickets. If brands can’t deliver that, AI won’t save them.”
Other key findings include:
- 41% of consumers expect to be contacted within 5 minutes after reporting an issue
- 38% are uncomfortable using AI-powered support like chatbots, with many saying they feel pushed into tools that don’t actually resolve their problems
- 9% say their issue never got resolved at all, a trust-breaker that leads directly to churn
Catlin continues, “While automation delivers efficiency, success ultimately depends on a brand’s ability to genuinely listen, understand, and act on customer interactions. By harnessing business solutions like conversational intelligence, companies can simultaneously identify friction points, drive operational improvements, and build the transparency and accountability that today’s consumers demand.”
While AI plays a growing role in scaling service operations, the research shows it cannot replace meaningful human connection—yet. Instead, brands need to use technology like conversational intelligence to better listen, understand, and act on what customers are really saying. Only then can they improve frontline performance and drive the kind of real-time, personal experiences that customers now expect.
Methodology
Pearl-Plaza’s comprehensive survey was conducted with 1,215 census-representative consumers, gathering insights on their customer service expectations, preferred support channels, and attitudes toward AI-driven interactions. The research focused on identifying key friction points in customer interactions, the role of AI in service delivery, and the evolving expectations of modern consumers.
For more information and to download a copy of the report, please click here.
About Pearl-Plaza
Pearl-Plaza is the leader in improving experiences and is the highest recommended CX platform and services company in the world. It is renowned for helping clients collect and connect customer experience data from everywhere—from surveys and social reviews, to conversational chat logs and transcripts. As the pace setters in AI and text analytics, its over 3,000 clients activate and understand every byte of structured and unstructured data, breaking down data and team silos to take the smartest actions. This award-winning technology combined with in-house industry experts empower brands to gain ROI from their CX programs in half the time as its competitors. Unlock the true potential of every piece of customer data with Pearl-Plaza. To learn more, visit pearl-plaza.ru.
For more information, contact Sam Middleton, sam.middleton@pearl-plaza.ru.