PTI New Delhi

Despite AI agents and chatbots increasingly becoming a part and parcel of customer service, they have yet to significantly reduce customer service wait times, with a report revealing that Indian consumers spent over 15 billion hours last year waiting to lodge customer service complaints.

The ServiceNow Customer Experience report analysed the widening gap between rising customer expectations and the reality of service delivery. It surveyed 5,000 Indian consumers and 204 Indian customer service agents.

As many as 80 per cent of Indian consumers now rely on AI chatbots for essential services like checking complaint statuses and product recommendations. Yet, these same consumers collectively spend an astounding 15 billion hours on hold each year, according to the report.

"While some headway has been made-- the average Indian spent 3.2 hours less time waiting for an issue to be resolved than the previous year--there is still a considerable gap between customer expectations and service delivery.

"This gap underscores the disconnect caused by siloed systems and limited visibility into the customer journey and adds to customer disappointment," the report pointed out. The report found that 39 per cent of consumers are kept on hold, 36 per cent are repeatedly transferred, and 34 per cent believe companies deliberately complicate the complaint process.