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NEWVOICEMEDIA FINDS 68 PERCENT PREFER LIVE AGENT SUPPORT TO SELF-HELP
Published by Gbaf News
Posted on June 30, 2016
4 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Gbaf News
Posted on June 30, 2016
4 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Businesses hail chatbots as the next big service tool, but the public is apprehensive
NewVoiceMedia,a leading global provider of cloud technology, which helps businesses sell more, serve better and grow faster, has found that while self-help options continue to advance, 68 percent of U.S. citizens would still prefer a live agent to handle their customer service queries.
Are businesses ready to replace agents with bots?
Recent media coverage has tunneled into the chatbot developments of companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Apple. Many are hailing AI as the future of customer service, and companies are quickly jumping on the bandwagon, eager to deploy their own smart communication solutions. However, NewVoiceMedia’s poll of more than 1,000 U.S. citizens shows that customers may not be ready for a complete AI service overhaul.
| Type of service | Self-help | Live agent |
| Technical support | 13% | 86% |
| Financial reporting | 22% | 56% |
| Returns/cancelations | 28% | 60% |
| Appointment booking | 41% | 52% |
| Purchase inquiries | 24% | 64% |
| Complaints | 13% | 77% |
| None (Do not prefer in any of the above categories) | 39% | 4% |
“It’s not that technological advancements cannot improve the customer experience. They absolutely can. But companies must first have a foundation of good support built on fundamentals that include phone functionality and in-depth customer insights”, comments Jonathan Gale, CEO of NewVoiceMedia. “Many companies have much to improve within their existing policies and procedures. Our survey shows the number one complaint in customer service continues to be response time, and that is a simple infrastructure issue”.
For further information about NewVoiceMedia, visit www.newvoicemedia.com.
The data for this survey was collected using SurveyMonkey Audience and 1,019 respondents. Information on how respondents are recruited to SurveyMonkey is available here: www.surveymonkey.com/mp/audience
Businesses hail chatbots as the next big service tool, but the public is apprehensive
NewVoiceMedia,a leading global provider of cloud technology, which helps businesses sell more, serve better and grow faster, has found that while self-help options continue to advance, 68 percent of U.S. citizens would still prefer a live agent to handle their customer service queries.
Are businesses ready to replace agents with bots?
Recent media coverage has tunneled into the chatbot developments of companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Apple. Many are hailing AI as the future of customer service, and companies are quickly jumping on the bandwagon, eager to deploy their own smart communication solutions. However, NewVoiceMedia’s poll of more than 1,000 U.S. citizens shows that customers may not be ready for a complete AI service overhaul.
| Type of service | Self-help | Live agent |
| Technical support | 13% | 86% |
| Financial reporting | 22% | 56% |
| Returns/cancelations | 28% | 60% |
| Appointment booking | 41% | 52% |
| Purchase inquiries | 24% | 64% |
| Complaints | 13% | 77% |
| None (Do not prefer in any of the above categories) | 39% | 4% |
“It’s not that technological advancements cannot improve the customer experience. They absolutely can. But companies must first have a foundation of good support built on fundamentals that include phone functionality and in-depth customer insights”, comments Jonathan Gale, CEO of NewVoiceMedia. “Many companies have much to improve within their existing policies and procedures. Our survey shows the number one complaint in customer service continues to be response time, and that is a simple infrastructure issue”.
For further information about NewVoiceMedia, visit www.newvoicemedia.com.
The data for this survey was collected using SurveyMonkey Audience and 1,019 respondents. Information on how respondents are recruited to SurveyMonkey is available here: www.surveymonkey.com/mp/audience
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