Report: Retail outranks other industries for customer support satisfaction
Retail receives relatively high marks from consumers when it comes to customer support.
According to a new survey from AI-powered customer assistance company Gradient Labs, consumers say banking and financial services (52%) have the best customer support operations, closely followed by retail at 44%. Travel (18%), utility providers (18%) software and tech support (18%) and government services (8%) all ranked much lower than retail.
Overall, just 11% of consumers say their issues are always resolved by customer support agents, while 13% insist their problems are rarely or never adequately addressed. Seventy-six percent said their issues are resolved only sometimes.
Three-quarters (75%) of consumers rank long wait times as the most frequent frustration when it comes to the customer support process. Being transferred between agents (60%) and receiving scripted responses (53%) make matters worse, while rude agents (45%) and chatbots (43%) are also gripes consumers have.
More than four-in-10 (37%) consumers have given in to the frustration and abandoned a company due to their poor customer service. Feeling dismissed, 65% of survey respondents have reported publicly calling out the companies that fail to provide adequate support. Some 48% vent their frustrations to friends and family members, 25% share their thoughts on review websites, and 14% shame unsupportive brands on social media.
Consumers’ frustrations don’t stop there. More than half (51%) of respondents have admitted to taking their complaints to the extreme in the past, visiting a company’s physical location (19%), threatening legal action (17%), and filing a government complaint (13%) to pressure unresponsive companies to address their concerns.
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“These customer support statistics should serve as a wake-up call for businesses,” said Gradient Labs. “Consumers are dissatisfied and demanding faster resolutions and better responses. Companies that fail to improve – such as by implementing AI in customer support to direct users to the right resources and automate resolutions – risk not only causing consumers frustration but also losing them to their competitors.”
For its report, Gradient Labs surveyed 1,500 U.S. adults in April 2025.
