Survey: Automated voice agents lead to frustrated customers, turnover
Automated voice agents are heavily unpopular with consumers.
According to a new survey from Tenyx, a creator of voice AI systems, approximately seven out of 10 people are either “frustrated or annoyed” with today’s automated voice agents. Only 20% of respondents would be a returning customer based on their recent experience with a company’s automated voice agent, while approximately three-in-10 (29%) said they would be less inclined to buy products or services from that company. A quarter of respondents (25%) said they would consider going with a different company, and 13% said they would never do business with that company again.
Two-thirds of respondents (67%) prefer talking with human agents over automated voice agents. Almost 30% of respondents said that they would always prefer to speak to a human agent, compared with only 3% who would always prefer to talk to an automated voice agent. When it comes to human agents, respondents say their biggest complaints are long wait times on hold (39%) and the agent having difficulty understanding accents or speech clarity (39%).
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Despite overall dissatisfaction with automated voice agents, respondents said that if they could match human agent performance, two-thirds would opt to often or always use an automated voice agent over a human agent.
“Our latest report reveals that most customers would trust AI voice agents if they could match human performance,” said Itamar Arel, Tenyx CEO. “But as it stands today, most customers are still more comfortable interacting with human agents. So much so that a vast majority would think twice about their loyalty to a company based on their past experiences with AI voice agents.”
Respondents say that their biggest complaint with automated voice agents is their “inability to handle complex issues.” If automation worked perfectly, three-quarters (74%) of respondents would like to see it used to connect them faster to a human for help, and almost half (46%) would like to see it answer questions.
Tenyx’s Voice AI Consumer Report surveyed 514 individuals across the United States ages 18-65+.
