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Survey Finds European Consumers Want Better Customer Support as Automation Falls Short

A Parloa survey of 750 consumers in the UK, Ireland, France and Germany found 90% say customer experience shapes brand perception, while 86.1% try to skip automation to reach a human.

AI News Feed · 2026-10-12 18:39

For years, customer service has been built around what is easiest for the business: keeping calls contained, routing customers down self-serve paths and designing website menus around what companies think customers need. The survey indicates European consumers are fed up with that approach. Only 6.6% of consumers said their interactions with an interactive voice response system or chatbot resolved their issues today, and 86.1% of respondents try to skip automation to speak with a human.

Consumers nevertheless see potential in AI. More than 75% of respondents believe future AI systems will eventually handle complex requests better than humans. 55.2% said they are already comfortable trying automation before speaking to a person.

The survey found that feeling understood is central to satisfaction with automated support. Just over 92% of respondents said feeling understood shaped their satisfaction, regardless of whether the issue was resolved by a chatbot or a person.

Speed matters, but not at the expense of accuracy. When asked about their most frustrating customer support experiences, long wait times ranked first. 62.6% of respondents said they would rather wait for a human than get a faster answer that might be wrong. The survey said most European consumers already wait up to five minutes for resolution, leaving room for improvement.

Consumers also want context to carry over when calls are transferred to a human. They want systems that preserve context rather than forcing them to repeat the same story after a transfer. 48% of respondents said they expect that to happen as a matter of course.

For European founders building customer experience programs, the survey presents a checklist for earning loyalty, according to Sifted. The technology is available and consumers are ready to accept it, but companies need to shift from seeing support as deflection to seeing it as connection, built around what customers want. Sifted reported that when that happens, loyalty is earned and revenue follows.