As AI takes over first-line customer support and self-service touchpoints, it’s become increasingly important for businesses to serve customers with empathy, flexibility, and transparency. Yes, AI promises faster, smarter self-service. However, the low customer adoption rates tell a different story.
In a recent webinar, Forrester Principal Analyst Max Ball noted that a mere 16% of U.S. consumers regularly use chatbots. Why? One bad experience is enough to turn them off. When AI-powered channels fail to meet expectations, such as trapping customers in a loop without a human handoff, the resulting frustration leads to a loss of trust that’s hard to regain.
The best customer experience (CX) strategies blend AI’s speed and efficiency with the staying power of human empathy. The key is designing systems that make automation feel seamless, not soulless. The five strategies ahead show how to strike the right balance by combining human connection with AI-driven intelligence to create experiences that build customer loyalty.
#1: Embed empathy as a revenue driver
Every interaction can be a loyalty-defining moment, and the emotion customers leave an interaction with shapes whether they’ll stay, spend, or recommend the brand to friends and family. In the webinar mentioned previously, Ball indicated that Forrester’s CX Index shows customers who feel appreciated are up to 88% more likely to remain loyal.
Given the strong link between emotion and loyalty, businesses have an opportunity to design experiences that foster positive feelings at every stage of the customer journey—and measure the impact of those efforts.
Empathy is measurable and profitable when baked into a brand’s CX design. What does embedding empathy in CX look like? A few examples include mapping key moments in a customer’s journey where emotions (positive or negative) are most strongly felt and training agents to respond with emotional intelligence. Businesses can measure these empathy-driven actions through metrics such as customer satisfaction scores, sentiment analysis, and first-contact resolution rates, and then tie them directly to business outcomes like customer retention and revenue growth.
Thinkof empathy as the multiplier effect on every company’s CX investment; it amplifies satisfaction, strengthens loyalty, and increases lifetime value over time.
#2: Keep voice at the center of high-stakes interactions
Another key takeaway from the webinar is that customers want a human voice they can trust when urgency or emotion is high.When stress levels are elevated, a human, reassuring voice can cut through confusion and frustration, reducing churn. Forrester found that up to 88% of customersprefer human support in billing disputes, delivery failures, or service outages.
The key is to treat voice as a strategic asset, pairing it with AI-enabled tools that surface context, guide agents, and automate routine tasks so humans focus on higher-stakes resolution. Businesses must train customer support agents to blend AI-driven precision with warmth, ensuring each call builds trust.
#3: Improve self-service with AI
Self-service can be a customer’s favorite option if it works well.According to Forrester’s numbers, a robust 67% of brands have customer-facing chatbots, but poor design is a roadblock to wide adoption. In fact, after a negative chatbot experience, 30% of customers are likely to take their purchase to a different brand, abandon their purchase altogether, or tell others about their poor experience.
The key to establishing a smooth and intuitive self-service experience is to build AI-enabled chatbots that handle multi-step requests (e.g., making reservations, handling billing questions, troubleshooting, and scheduling appointments) and understand when to hand the conversation to a live agent. It’s also crucial that these chatbots arm human agents with the chat history and AI-driven suggestions to easily continue the conversation without missing a beat.
#4: Retain customers by meeting them on their channel of choice
Customers expect brands to be available on whatever channel is most convenient for them and want brands to make it easy to switch channels without losing context.But being channel-flexible isn’t just about technology; it’s also about showing customers that the organization respects their time, preferences, and needs for control in the conversation.
True channel flexibility means customers can, for example, start troubleshootingan issue via live chat, then seamlessly switch to a phone call for more detailed guidance, or move from social media support to a private email thread, all without repeating details or previous conversation history. More (connected) channels deliver more opportunities to serve.
#5: Set a new standard with proactive, augmented support
Customers expect businesses to anticipate their needs more and more.One way to meet this expectation is for brands to equip agents with real-time insights and AI-driven recommendations to deliver faster, more personal service.
AI is best suited to handle repetitive tasks like order tracking and account updates, so humans focus on complex, high-empathy conversations. Proactive, AI-augmented support strengthens relationships at every touchpoint. Proactive communication can include sending timely alerts before an issue arises, such as notifying a customer of a potential service disruption or suggesting a product refill based on past usage. It also means tailoring these communications to the customer’s preferences and context, making each interaction feel relevant and valuable.
When customers feel a brand has anticipated their needs before they even ask, the relationship transforms from transactional to trusted.
Leading CX in the AI-native era
Customer expectations aren’t standing still, and neither should CX strategies. AI can help businesses work smarter, respond faster, and connect more deeply with customers. The brands that thrive in the AI-native era will be those that never lose sight of the human at the other end of the interaction. It all comes down to an organization’s ability to use AI to strengthen empathy, preserve trust, and adapt to each customer’s preferred way of engaging. Businesses that follow these principles can create an AI-native CX where customers feel heard, valued, and eager to return.
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