DCX Links | June 15, 2025
Emotions, Expectations & Automation: The New CX Battleground
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Welcome to the DCX weekly roundup of customer experience insights!
CX is hitting a turning point—and most brands are still playing catch-up. This week, the research hits hard: emotions win over features, hype can backfire, and even your smartest AI might be driving customers away.
What’s really going on?
Customers are craving connection, not just convenience.
Your agents might be sabotaging self-service without even realizing it.
Your chatbot might be too perfect to care.
And that buzz you built? It could be setting you up for disappointment.
The good news? There’s a better way—and it starts with rethinking what “experience” really means.
Let’s dig in.
-Mark
This week’s must-read links:
CX: Still the Brand Dealbreaker
When Good Buzz Goes Bad
Self-Service Sabotage Starts with Your Agents
The Bots Are Coming to Your Doorstep
Your AI Assistant Isn’t Broken—Your Design Is
Bland is Exciting
CX: Still the Brand Dealbreaker
Ipsos drops data-backed proof that emotion beats function, and that most brands still aren't hitting the mark.
Why it matters:
70% of customers pick a brand expecting a great experience—but half walk away with something forgettable or worse. This global study of 65,000+ evaluations shows CX isn’t just a soft skill. It’s a business growth strategy.
The bar is higher than ever
Forget just meeting expectations. Ipsos argues the real game-changer is emotional attachment, and the numbers back it up:
Customers who feel emotionally attached give NPS scores of 67 vs. -23 for the unfulfilled
Retention jumps from 23% to 76% when customers feel connected.
They recommend your brand more than 5x as often.
Get past the basics
The best brands do more than deliver—they delight. That means mastering what Ipsos calls the Forces of CX:
Certainty
Fair Treatment
Control
Status
Belonging
Enjoyment
These emotional levers predict real customer outcomes across banks, airlines, retailers, utilities, and more.
What about AI?
Only 14% of customers think they’ll benefit most from AI
So if your AI tools feel more robotic than helpful, you're not just missing the mark—you’re fueling frustration.
CX takeaway for you:
Use this as your reality check and rally cry. Emotional connection isn't fluff—it’s the new ROI. Map your journey, track your emotional drivers, and don’t let AI get in the way of human-centered design.
🔗 Learn more→ Source
When Good Buzz Goes Bad
The Big Idea: Word-of-mouth is a powerful sales tool, but too much hype can backfire.
The twist you didn’t see coming: New research from Sarah G. Moore (University of Alberta) and David L. Alexander (University of St. Thomas) finds that positive word-of-mouth, while great for getting customers to buy, can unintentionally undermine how they feel after purchase. That gushing praise? It might actually make people more anxious, cautious, and less satisfied.
The study scoop:
The duo's first hint came from a 2004 survey of new tech adopters (DVDs and flat screens were the hot items back then).
They noticed something odd: The more people heard good things beforehand, the more anxious and hesitant they felt after purchase.
Fast forward to 2016, same effect: More buzz = more caution = less satisfaction.
Even worse, it sometimes led to negative word-of-mouth after the fact.
Why this happens: It’s all about social pressure. The more glowing the reviews, the more customers worry they won’t "measure up." That self-doubt leads to timid use, fewer experiments, and ultimately a flatter experience.
Not just gadgets: This anxiety stretches beyond tech. In one study, people went to a restaurant after hearing rave reviews and ended up playing it safe with their order. Too much hype = less adventurous behavior.
What CX pros should do:
Reframe the message: Encourage user stories that show learning curves, mistakes, and growth.
Normalize exploration: Shift from "this is the best app ever!" to "here’s what I figured out after fumbling through it."
Reduce the pressure: Make room for imperfect, human experiences.
Why it matters: In CX, the story we tell shapes expectations—and expectations shape experience. The best onboarding isn't always about showing off features. Sometimes it's about saying: "You'll figure it out. We've got you."
For CX leaders: Be mindful of how social proof can unintentionally raise the bar. Set the tone for discovery, not perfection.
🔗 Get the full article → WSJ
Self-Service Sabotage Starts with Your Agents
Gartner says your agents may be the reason customers avoid self-service, and GenAI might not be the quick fix you think it is.
Why it matters:
You’re investing in digital self-service and GenAI, but your frontline may be quietly undercutting your entire strategy. According to Gartner’s January–February 2025 survey of 5,800+ customers, 60% of agents don’t actively promote self-service. Some even badmouth it.
The missed opportunity
When agents do endorse self-service? Customer adoption doubles.
But 37% of agent mentions are either neutral or negative—completely undermining the channel’s value.
Self-service isn’t just cost-cutting. It’s empowerment. But that message isn’t getting through.
GenAI faces a phone problem
Despite hype around AI assistants, most customers still prefer the phone—and they’re satisfied with it. That’s a hurdle:
55% of leaders plan to roll out GenAI chatbots this year.
But only 35% of customers who recently called in say they’d use a digital assistant next time.
Voice isn’t the enemy
Keith McIntosh of Gartner nails the real play: don't replace the phone—enhance it. Build GenAI into the workflow, not outside it. Offer seamless transitions, not forced migrations.
CX takeaway for you:
The real blocker isn’t tech—it’s trust. Train agents to be your self-service champions, not its critics. And when it comes to GenAI, position it as backup, not a substitute. Progress doesn’t require abandoning what works. It requires integrating what’s next.
🔗 Learn more from Gartner
The Bots Are Coming to Your Doorstep
Amazon’s next frontier? Humanoid robots delivering your packages—and they’re already training in a custom-built obstacle course.
Why it matters:
Amazon is testing robots that can walk, navigate stairs, and complete deliveries. It’s not a sci-fi movie—it’s happening now in San Francisco. The goal? Automate the final mile of delivery and reduce reliance on human couriers.
Welcome to ‘Humanoid Park’
Inside one of Amazon’s San Francisco offices, the company built an indoor obstacle course to test robot performance in real-world conditions. The plan:
Robots hop out of Rivian electric vans.
Navigate curbs, walkways, maybe even your dog.
Deliver packages right to your door.
This is a big leap from warehouse-only bots to street-level humanoids.
AI is the brains behind the brawn
Amazon’s not just testing delivery bots—it’s rebuilding its entire logistics engine:
Agentic AI powers new warehouse bots that can multi-task.
GenAI enhances delivery maps with hyper-detailed layouts.
Smart glasses may soon guide drivers hands-free through tricky drop-offs.
Forecasting AI ensures products sit closer to customers.
CX takeaway for you:
Automation isn’t staying in the warehouse. It’s knocking on your customer’s front door. The takeaway isn’t “robots are replacing people”—it’s that AI is redesigning expectations for speed, consistency, and convenience. Your customer’s new benchmark may soon be a robot with a smile.
🔗 Learn more→ Source
Your AI Assistant Isn’t Broken—Your Design Is
When customers ghost your chatbot, it’s not about the tech. It’s about behavior. And that’s on you.
Why it matters:
Too many teams focus on building technically flawless AI assistants—ones that answer questions, route requests, and follow scripts perfectly. But then they’re shocked when customers still abandon the conversation.
Here’s the truth: Working technology doesn’t guarantee customer action.
Customers don’t act just because something is available. They act because the experience nudges them to. If your assistant isn’t designed to motivate behavior, it doesn’t matter how accurate or fast it is. It still fails.
The problem isn’t the system.
It’s that the customer didn’t feel invited, interested, or able to act.
That’s why behavioral design is more important than technical design. If the interaction doesn’t move the customer forward, then it’s just noise.
The Conversational Action Model
This dead-simple but powerful framework breaks down what really drives action. You’ve got three levers:
Invitation – Are you clearly asking them to act?
Desire – Do they actually want what you’re offering?
Ease – Is it frictionless to follow through?
Miss any one, and your journey stalls.
How it shows up
Vague intros like “How can I help?” aren’t invitations.
“Want to learn more?” creates zero desire.
Five buttons with jargon = death to ease.
Behavioral design demands clarity over complexity and guidance over guessing.
From infinite flows to simple direction
The team at the Conversation Design Institute helped a large bank reframe its chatbot strategy. Instead of whiteboarding every possibility, they asked:
What do we want the customer to do?
How do we invite it?
How do we spark desire?
How do we make it effortless?
The result: fewer dead ends, better performance, lower costs.
CX takeaway for you:
Don’t just design conversations. Design conversions. Make Invitation, Desire, and Ease your daily mantra. Because your customer doesn’t care how smart your AI is. They care how clearly it leads them forward.
🔗 Learn more from Source
Bland is Exciting
Your Next CX Rep Might Be a Voice Bot—And You Won’t Be Able to Tell
Bland just redefined text-to-speech by turning speech into a generative experience, not a technical process.
Why it matters:
Voice is poised to be the most human interface in customer experience. Bland’s breakthrough text-to-speech (TTS) engine doesn’t just say words—it understands how to say them with emotion, nuance, and style. It’s not just more natural. It’s indistinguishable from real conversation.
The big shift: From pipelines to predictions
Traditional TTS systems break speech into steps—text in, phonetics out, then prosody, then sound. Bland tosses that out. Their new approach:
Uses large language models (LLMs) to directly predict audio tokens from text
Captures tone, pacing, and emotion—all in one go
Makes speech generation more like storytelling than stitching parts together
Built on data most teams can’t dream of
Bland’s team assembled millions of hours of two-channel conversational audio, fully transcribed and tagged—way beyond what most models get. This lets the system:
Learn turn-taking, interruptions, and emotional cues
Handle industry-specific language (healthcare, finance, etc.)
Blend speech with sound effects (yes, it can <bark> like a dog)
Real style. Real emotion. Real creepy-good.
With just 3–6 examples, the model can:
Mimic speaking styles
Transfer tone (e.g., calm, excited)
Blend multiple voices for hybrid tones
Understand emotional context and shift delivery in real time
CX takeaway for you:
Voice AI is no longer about robotic FAQs. It’s a canvas for emotion, persuasion, and brand presence. Whether you're building assistants, IVRs, or proactive outbound messages, this level of control lets you scale intimacy with your customer. And that’s a serious CX edge.
🔗 Learn more→ Source
🔗 Give it a Try Yourself
Thank you!
I hope you found value in this week’s links. See you next Sunday at 8:15 am ET!
If this edition sparked ideas, share it with a colleague or team member. Let’s grow the DCX community together!
👋 Please Reach Out
I created this newsletter to help customer-obsessed pros like you deliver exceptional experiences and tackle challenges head-on. But honestly? The best part is connecting with awesome, like-minded people—just like you! 😊
Here’s how you can get involved:
Got feedback? Tell me what’s working, what’s not, or what you’d love to see next.
Stuck on something? Hit me up whether it’s a CX challenge, strategy question, or team issue—I’m here to help.
Just want to say hi? Seriously, don’t be shy. I’d love to connect, share ideas, or even swap success stories.
Your input keeps this newsletter fresh and valuable. Let’s start a conversation—email me, DM me, or comment anytime. I can’t wait to hear from you!
— Mark
www.marklevy.co
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