CX is dead—and that’s by design

Customer experience as we know it is dead.

Companies didn’t suddenly give up. Customers didn’t decide personal experiences were pointless. But the CX we’ve come to understand is gone—and that’s because most platforms don’t know what it means to be customer-centric.

Declines in CX at both the brand and industry level are steeper than ever, with 39% of brands experiencing a significant decline in the quality of their CX.

Customer experience today is a casualty of compromise driven by legacy technology and bolt-on AI solutions. Traditional platforms have convinced brands they must choose between exceptional customer experiences and cost efficiency. So they’ve settled—sacrificing relationships to cut corners.

But AI itself isn’t to blame. The platforms wielding it are.

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People-centered vs ticket-centered support

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Legacy CX led us away from conversations

Legacy CX platforms were designed to treat customers like transactions. Problem in, solution out. The process was quick and cheap because the value in early CX was perceived to answer quantity over answer quality.

Once “conversational AI” became the industry standard, these legacy platforms presented their same, outdated ticket-based systems and with this new term (without making major changes to incorporate customer conversations). But there’s nothing conversational about needing to reintroduce yourself every time you interact with the same brand. It’s impersonal—and explicitly inhuman.

Then there’s bolt-on AI tools. They measure success in metrics like “deflection rates,” as if keeping customers away from getting support is some kind of victory. It’s a short-term view that might satisfy a CFO for a quarter or two, but it’s killing customer relationships, and long term business growth.

In fact, 98% of customers value swift issue resolution, but only 58% of organizations achieve this. When customers don’t get the help they need, they’re more likely to leave negative reviews or switch to competitors.

Adding AI to your broken CX makes matters worse

Ticketing systems do exactly what they’re meant to—ticket. They deflect, contain, and move on. So bolting AI onto one of these systems only amplifies its transactional nature. The real culprit behind bad CX is a lack of humanity—these platforms weren’t built with people in mind. AI became their quick-fix solution to keep customers at arm’s length. Intentional or not, it deliberately degrades the experience.

Paired with a ticketing system, AI-powered chatbots can’t be counted on to give customers the best answers. The result is confusion and distrust. Only 28% of US online adults report that they would trust information provided by AI.

Imagine contacting your cable company. You’ve already spent half of your lunch break navigating automated phone prompts. Then a bot asks again who you are and why you’re calling—as if you haven’t already wasted ten minutes explaining your issue to someone else. This isn’t a technology limitation—it’s a deliberate choice. The incentive is to cut costs and increase efficiency, without thinking through what that will do to long term customer loyalty.

It’s a short term mindset.

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Building long-term loyalty in today's crowded market

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Gladly makes AI conversational, agentic, and contextual

The smartest brands realize CX doesn’t need to be transactional, even at scale. They understand that exceptional experience and cost savings aren’t mutually exclusive—not when customer context and real relationships are built into the way AI works.

According to a Gallup study, strong engagement can reduce customer attrition by 63% and can improve overall performance by 23% compared to competitors who don’t prioritize engagement.

Gladly embeds AI into every layer of the customer journey. More importantly, we center people throughout the entire experience. It feels human, personal, and continuous.

Our AI combines:

Conversational intelligence that understands and engages customers in real dialogue
Agentic intelligence that acts thoughtfully on your brand’s behalf
Contextual intelligence that remembers every customers’ lifelong relationship history with your brand

Every Gladly conversation is powered by rich, real-time context: orders, behaviors, loyalty status, demographics, and full conversation history across all channels. Customers feel known and valued, not treated like a ticket. Every conversation is faster, more personal, and more effective.

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Customer service is a revenue powerhouse

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Giving agency to your agents

At Gladly, we don’t think of AI as just the tech that powers our platform. Our main objective is people. So it’s imperative that we support the people who interact with your customers every day. Your agents. With complete customer context at their fingertips, frontline teams can move beyond simply resolving issues. They become proactive problem-solvers, relationship-builders, and loyalty drivers.

Imagine contacting an airline to adjust a flight you have coming up. Instead of repeating your information for the third time, the person helping you already knows exactly who you are, your recent conversations, preferences, and even anticipates your needs. The conversation feels human and natural. Not because it’s artificially scripted, but because the person on the other end is genuinely empowered to understand and respond to you personally.

When brands empower frontline teams with this kind of context, the results speak for themselves. One premium outdoor clothing retailer boosted revenue per conversation by 120%, just by equipping their teams with deeper insights. Another sustainable footwear brand automated routine tasks around shipping and tracking, freeing their frontline agents to engage customers in meaningful conversations about fit, style, and personal recommendations—which drove both customer satisfaction and increased sales.

By putting people at the center of our experience platform, both customers and agents benefit, transforming customer conversations into lifelong relationships that fosters deeper trust in your brand.

Context is everything in CX

Traditional platforms view customer context as optional. A nice-to-have luxury reserved for VIPs or special cases. That’s a mistake. Context isn’t an extra. It’s a requirement.

Context lets brands know:

Who your customers are
How long a customer has been loyal to your brand
What customers bought and any status updates
What customers need next
What mood your customers are in
How customers prefer to engage with your brand
Trends in customer issues

Gladly was built with AI at its core, making every conversation an ongoing relationship rather than an isolated ticket. This is how you scale lifelong loyalty.

The end of legacy CX opens up a new CX legacy

There’s nothing wrong with automation or efficiency. Every smart business wants to manage costs. But you can’t cut your way through. You grow by increasing lifetime value for your customers. And you do that through conversations built around context and connection.

AI done right doesn’t replace human conversations. It amplifies them. It ensures that when your support agents engage with customers, they’re equipped with the right context, so every conversation feels meaningful and continuous—because it is.

Meaningful conversations create relationships, relationships build loyalty, and loyalty drives repeat business.

Forward-thinking brands are beginning to realize there’s a better way. They’re embracing platforms built around customer context and meaningful conversations, allowing them to scale loyalty without compromise.

Customer experience isn’t dead for brands willing to leave legacy tools behind. In fact, for those companies it’s thriving, and delivering an all-new legacy at scale.

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