AI
INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY
UAE customers lose 83 million hours a year to poor customer service
New ServiceNow research reveals that customers in the UAE lose more than 10 million working days a year navigating slow customer service.
ServiceNow has released new research that highlights the gap between the potential of AI and how service is being delivered. The CX Shift: Customer Expectations in the AI Era found that citizens and residents across the UAE are collectively spending more than 83 million hours a year on hold, despite the improvements made possible by AI.
The research, conducted with ThoughtLab, surveyed 34,000 executives, service representatives and customers globally, including 1,335 respondents in the UAE. The results reveal that poor customer service in the UAE costs every consumer the equivalent of 10.8 hours a year – more than a full working day – spent dealing with issues such as long wait times, repeating information or navigating slow systems. While organisations are investing in AI, outdated systems are preventing many from turning those investments into the faster, smoother experiences customers expect.
Consumers are paying a hidden productivity tax
Across EMEA, the research found that customer issues take an average of three to four days to resolve – even in sectors designed for speed, such as banking and telecommunications. In manufacturing, resolution times stretch to nearly a full working week. Even in the technology sector, known to be early adopters of platforms and technology, less than one in five( 18 %) customer service issues are resolved within an hour.
Shakira Talbot, Group Vice President, CRM EMEA, ServiceNow
Close to half of consumers in the UAE( 41 %) rate current customer service as average, poor or terrible. Meanwhile, 45 % of customers across the Emirates say they would switch to a competitor after a single poor or slow experience.
“ Consumers across EMEA are losing entire working days to service experiences that should take minutes. The root cause isn’ t a lack of AI investment – it’ s that most CRM systems were built to record interactions, not resolve them. That’ s the shift we’ re driving: CRM as a system of action, not a system of record,” said Shakira Talbot, Group Vice President, CRM EMEA, ServiceNow.
AI is gaining trust but empathy remains the gap
Almost two-thirds of UAE consumers( 62 %) say AI has improved customer service. Half of those in the UAE( 49 %) report gains in speed, efficiency and convenience; and 60 % say AI has improved after-hours and 24 / 7 support. Yet speed alone is insufficient.
55 % of UAE consumers cite lack of empathy as a top frustration. Channel preferences play an important role in this gap: while 89 % of UAE consumers prefer phone support, 80 % attempt self-service first – but 47 % say current chatbots fail to understand their questions or concerns.
“ Customers want to feel heard and resolved, not just routed. But that can’ t happen when AI and human agents operate in different systems with different views of the customer. The organisations getting this right are the ones connecting their entire operation – front office to back office – on a single platform. That’ s when CRM stops being a digital filing cabinet and starts being a revenue engine,” added Talbot. • www. intelligentcio. com
INTELLIGENT CIO MIDDLE EAST
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