Contact Center Pipeline November 2026 | Page 35

That also brings governance, compliance, and guardrails further to the forefront. As organizations rely more on AI and automation, they need to make sure those systems are secure, accurate, and aligned with both business goals and customer needs.

HOW MUCH OF TODAY’ S CUSTOMERS’ SATIS- FACTION AND LOYALTY, OR CONVERSELY THEIR DISSATISFACTION AND CHURN, IS BASED ON THE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES THEY PURCHASE VERSUS THEIR EXPERIENCES PURCHASING AND RECEIVING SERVICE AND SUPPORT FOR THEM THROUGH THE CONTACT CENTER?

AC: CX is carrying more of the loyalty weight than product now. Two numbers from our research illustrate this: 79 % say they ' d switch to a competitor after one bad experience and 80 % say they ' d buy again and recommend that brand after a great one. That ' s a thin margin on either side of a single interaction.

Product quality is a baseline differentiator, but not the only one. CX is one of the most critical differentiators. However, most customers can ' t accurately evaluate a product against the alternatives they didn ' t buy.

Everyone can evaluate what happened when they called for help. Service is the part they experience over and over, meaning it’ s the piece they can describe to someone else afterward. Which is why I ' d encourage leaders to stop reviewing service as a cost line.

A failed resolution isn ' t a handling expense. It ' s a retention test the brand just took.

DS: Product problems are now nearly universal. 77 % of U. S. consumers experienced a product or service problem in the past year, according to a study by Customer Care Measurement & Consulting( CCMC) and Arizona State University.

When three in four customers encounter a problem, the recovery is what they judge. CCMC and Arizona State estimate that more than $ 596 billion in revenue is at risk from poor complaint handling.

Not surprisingly, the American Customer Satisfaction Institute( ACSI)' s Q1 2026 data shows satisfaction falling and complaints at record levels, even as retention rose and profits soared.

It ' s tempting to conclude that service is fine. It isn ' t. Unhappy customers are staying because leaving is hard, as markets have grown more concentrated and switching costs have risen.

Service is part of what the customer bought, not separate from it. Pricing and functionality are hard to tell apart across competing brands today, but brands can still differentiate on CX.

When companies align their brand promise with the experiences they deliver, they can unlock up to 3.5x revenue growth, according to Forrester’ s“ Global Total Experience Score Rankings, 2025,” and significantly boost customer loyalty.

EW: Product quality and CX are intrinsically linked, and in many cases they compound each other.

• A poor product experience can be frustrating, but customers are often willing to give a brand another chance if the issue is resolved quickly, fairly, and with minimal effort.

• The reverse is also true. What might have been a manageable issue becomes a broader reflection of the brand itself, making customers far more likely to churn, leave negative feedback, or take their business elsewhere.

The organizations that perform best are the ones that look at the entire customer journey. It’ s not enough to fix product issues without improving service, and it’ s not enough to improve service if recurring product issues remain unresolved.

With 60 % of consumers leaving a brand after just one or two poor experiences, and approximately 82 % switching to a competitor after multiple negative interactions, the stakes are high. Good experiences reinforce loyalty while bad experiences reinforce dissatisfaction.

ARE YOU SEEING ANY CHANGES IN OR PRESSURE TO CHANGE QUALITY ASSURANCE( QA) AND QUALITY MONITORING( QM), INCLUDING CUSTOMER FEEDBACK METHODS?

AC: There’ s enormous survey fatigue in the market and customers expect quality to be addressed in real time, not weeks later.

Quality programs are now moving beyond whether an agent said the right thing to whether the right action actually happened.

Historically, QA focused heavily on language, process adherence, and scorecards, which can miss the issue mattering most to the customer.

For example, an agent may tell a customer,“ I’ ve processed your refund for $ 153,” but accidentally enter $ 135. A traditional quality program may not catch that if the conversation sounded right but an automated answer validation can.

As a result, quality isn’ t just reviewing the conversation after the fact, but checking whether the customer’ s issue was handled correctly. Speed matters too.

With manual evaluations, even serious issues may not surface until days or weeks later, when the customer has already felt the impact or a compliance issue has already happened.

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