The death of the customer experience was no accident
Sponsored by GladlyLegacy platforms and bolt-on AI have ruined CX
Customer experience as we know it is dead. Not because companies suddenly gave up, or because consumers decided seamless, personal experiences don’t matter anymore. It’s dead because most platforms didn’t truly understand what it meant to be customer-centric in the first place.
The data proves this out. Declines in CX at both the brand and industry level are steeper than ever, with 39 per cent of brands experiencing a significant decline in the quality of their CX.
The truth is that customer experience (CX) today is a casualty of compromise driven by legacy technology and bolt-on AI solutions. Traditional platforms have convinced brands they must choose between exceptional customer experiences and cost efficiency. So they’ve settled with sacrificing relationships to cut corners.
But AI itself isn’t the villain. The platforms wielding it are.
The false choice at the heart of CX
Legacy CX platforms were designed to treat every customer conversation as a disposable transaction, a problem to resolve quickly and cheaply. Slapping “conversational AI” onto outdated ticket-based systems and calling it innovation. But there’s nothing conversational about reintroducing yourself every single time. It’s infuriatingly impersonal, designed explicitly to avoid meaningful human connection.
On the other hand, bolt-on AI tools measure success in metrics such as “deflection rates”, as if keeping customers away from getting support is some kind of victory. It’s a short-term view that might satisfy a CFO for a quarter or two, but it’s killing customer relationships and long-term business growth.
In fact, 98 per cent of customers value swift issue resolution, but only 58 per cent of organizations achieve this. When customers don’t get the help they need, they’re more likely to leave negative reviews or switch to competitors.
Bolt-on AI won’t save you
Don’t blame the chatbots. They’re just doing exactly what they were told. The real culprit is that the platforms powering them weren’t built around people. They were built around tickets, cases, deflection and containment. AI became their quick-fix solution to keep customers at arm’s length. Intentional or not, it deliberately degrades the experience.
Organisations across the board face disastrous answers given by customer-facing AI-powered chatbots. The result is confusion and distrust. Only 28% of US online adults report that they would trust information provided by AI.
Imagine contacting your cable company. You’ve already spent half your lunch break navigating automated phone prompts. Then a bot asks again who you are and why you’re calling, as if you haven’t already wasted ten minutes explaining your issue to someone else. This isn’t a technology limitation – it’s a deliberate choice. The incentive is to cut costs and increase efficiency, without thinking through what that will do to long-term customer loyalty.
It’s a short-term mindset.
Gladly’s approach to AI: conversational, agentic and contextual
Not every company has settled for this compromise. The smartest brands are rejecting the old way entirely. They’ve realised CX doesn’t need to be transactional, even at scale. Exceptional experience and cost savings aren’t mutually exclusive—not when customer context and real relationships are built into the way AI works.
According to a Gallup study, strong engagement can reduce customer attrition by 63 per cent and can improve overall performance by 23 per cent compared to competitors who don’t prioritise engagement.
At Gladly, we’ve embedded AI into every layer of the customer journey. Not bolted it on as an afterthought. It combines conversational intelligence (understanding and engaging in real dialogue), agentic intelligence (acting thoughtfully on your behalf), and contextual intelligence (remembering your whole relationship history). It feels human, personal, and continuous.
Empowering your frontline teams
Gladly’s approach to AI isn’t just about technology—it’s about supporting the people who interact with your customers every day. With complete customer context at their fingertips, frontline teams can move beyond simply resolving issues. They become proactive problem-solvers, relationship-builders, and loyalty drivers.
Imagine contacting your favourite airline to adjust your flight. Instead of repeating your information for the third time, the person helping you already knows exactly who you are, your recent conversations, preferences, and even anticipates your next need. The conversation feels human and natural. Not because it’s artificially scripted, but because the person on the other end is genuinely empowered to understand and respond to you personally.
When brands empower frontline teams with this kind of context, the results speak for themselves. One premium outdoor clothing retailer boosted revenue per conversation by 120 per cent, simply by equipping their teams with deeper insights. Another sustainable footwear brand automated routine tasks around shipping and tracking, freeing their frontline staff to engage customers in meaningful conversations about fit, style and personal recommendations, which drove both customer satisfaction and increased sales.
Empowering your frontline isn’t a branding gimmick. It’s fundamental to transforming customer conversations from transactional exchanges into lifelong relationships.
Context isn’t optional. It’s everything.
Traditional platforms view customer context as optional. A nice-to-have luxury reserved for VIPs or special cases. That’s a mistake. Context isn’t an extra. It’s a requirement.
Context means remembering who your customers are, what they bought, what they need next, and how they prefer to engage with your brand. Gladly was built with AI at its core, making every conversation an ongoing relationship rather than an isolated ticket. This is how you scale lifelong loyalty.
The end of compromise
There’s nothing wrong with automation or efficiency. Every smart business wants to manage costs. But you don’t cut your way through. You grow by increasing customer lifetime value. And you do that through conversations built around context and connection.
AI done right doesn’t replace human conversations, it amplifies them. It ensures that when your support heroes (what we call agents) engage with customers, they’re equipped with the right context, so every conversation feels meaningful and continuous. Because it is.
The maths is simple. Meaningful conversations create relationships, relationships build loyalty and loyalty drives repeat business. Forward-thinking brands are beginning to realise there’s a better way. One where they don’t have to sacrifice relationships for efficiency. They’re embracing platforms built around customer context and meaningful conversations, enabling them to scale loyalty without compromise.
Customer experience isn’t dead for brands willing to leave compromise behind. In fact, for those companies it’s thriving, and delivering better business results at scale.
Learn more about how Gladly is reshaping AI in CX at Gladly Connect Virtual on May 28. Register today
Austin Reece, Head of Product Marketing, Gladly
Business Reporter Team
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