Workforce Skills Forecast 2025 Customer service is stealing a full working day from consumers in Austria every year To understand how AI is reshaping CX, ServiceNow conducted an extensive global study of 34,000 customers, customer service representatives, and executives. Across Austria, consumers spend the equivalent of an entire working day (nine hours) every year dealing with customer service - time on hold, repeated contact, unresolved issues. Customer service has become a hidden productivity tax. Speed and empathy Tech and humans Organizations need to find the right balance between digital and human communication channels. 55% cite lack of empathy as their top frustration, yet only 15% of execs recognize it as a challenge expect improved speed and efficiency from AI in the future58% prefer self-service before speaking to a service rep73% still want phone calls, but only 10% of executives will prioritize this channel in the next 3 years 91% What customers want Time for customer engagement Service reps spend much of their time on AI-solvable tasks such as admin (16%), reporting (13%), summarizing call notes (9%), and chasing teams for information (8%). Connected systems 82% of service reps must log in to three to five systems to address one customer issue What service reps need say inconsistent customer data views are a top challenge41% 48% of customers would switch to a competitor due to poor or slow service of executives report high customer churn from poor customer experiences 44% of service reps time is spent taking care of customer issues 44% only 1,000 100 consumers service reps executives 8 industries 110 AUSTRIA AUSTRIA FINDINGS Dive deeper into each strategy and discover more expert insights at servicenow.com/cx-ai-era Execs must do more to align AI strategy with customer priorities The disconnected enterprise 29% have optimized their CRM to unify issue resolution across the customer lifecycle of executives have made significant progress connecting people, data, and processes via AI-enabled workflows 34% AI delivers maximum value when it works for people. Those who reimagine CX around a connected enterprise, empowered service reps, and human-centered experiences will drive customer retention and growth. Here are six best practices organizations can embrace: Six strategies for the human + AI era 1 Rethink how you measure CX success 2 Go beyond AI co-pilots 3 Tap into autonomous AI for self-service 4 Prepare CX teams for the agentic AI era 5 Deploy strategic CRM as an experience platform 6 Unite data to fuel AI-driven experiences What executives are missing Top four customer values in CX Organizations’ progress improving each area through AI* 01 Trustworthiness 02 Responsiveness 03 Security & privacy 04 Personalisation 30% 32% 29% 30% The CX Shift * Midway or advanced in AI implementation