CSG: Addressing Customer Effort Inflation: Strategic Imperatives for Enterprise CX Leaders

CSG — 2026 — Customer Experience

The 2026 CSG global study of 1,800 digital citizens identifies a widespread "Effort Inflation" where 3 out of 4 consumers say resolving an issue takes as much or more effort than a year ago, driving churn and customer frustration. The research finds that high effort correlates with loyalty loss — 86% would consider leaving over excessive effort — and that AI and automation often worsen experiences (81% say AI takes more effort; 77% use third-party AI assistants), revealing a gap between designed and lived CX. CSG recommends four strategic imperatives — recasting AI as a true problem-solver, aligning designed journeys with actual behavior, making personalization an enterprise discipline, and assigning accountable journey ownership — to reduce effort, improve resolution, and protect customer lifetime value.

Key Statistics

• 3 out of 4 consumers report resolving an issue with a brand requires as much or more effort than it did a year ago
• 86% of consumers indicate they are likely to leave a brand when dealing with it requires too much work
• 81% of consumers report that AI or automated support takes more effort than interacting with a live person
• 77% of consumers have used third-party AI assistants like ChatGPT or Claude to help resolve issues with brands

Key Takeaways

• Measure AI channel performance by first-contact resolution, successful task completion, repeat contact rates, escalation volume, and customer effort scores rather than containment metrics alone
• Map and simulate end-to-end customer journeys using Voice of Customer and operational data, and enable seamless context transfer across channels to eliminate repetitions and detours
• Implement enterprise-wide personalization with a unified customer view, robust data governance, and role-based access to reduce friction across support, billing, and product interactions
• Assign executive ownership for critical journeys with authority to enforce SLAs, prioritize resources, integrate systems, and report end-to-end journey health

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Cite as: CSG. (2026). CSG: Addressing Customer Effort Inflation: Strategic Imperatives for Enterprise CX Leaders. Retrieved from https://research.agilebrandguide.com/reports/csg/csg-addressing-customer-effort-inflation-strategic-imperatives-for-enterprise-cx-leaders