Data shows respondents’ sentiments about service friction, channel handoff, AI comfort, and customer experience technology plans across sampled countries

Based on a Mar/Apr 2026 survey of 1,426 consumers and 508 Customer eXperience (CX) leader respondents from certain Asia Pacific countries* and drawn from a broader study of 5,811 consumers and 1,560 CX and business leaders in more than 20 countries, a customer experience firm has shared data findings about customer service preferences, AI attitudes, and service-friction impacts.

First, 63% of Singapore respondents had indicated they did not prefer to contact customer service, and 86% of respondents had indicated that poor service had caused them to spend less or stop doing business with a brand.

Second, 84% of respondents from the APAC countries involved, indicated expecting AI to improve customer-service quality and speed, while 82% expected it to improve personalization; 80% indicated that they did not particularly care whether an issue was solved by a person or AI as long as it was resolved quickly and completely.

Other findings
Third, 93% of consumers from the APAC sample cited valuing efficient customer service as much as empathetic treatment, and 96% indicated expecting information to be remembered across channels. According to the surveyed CX leaders, 46% of organizations surveyed did not automatically pass information between virtual and human agents. Also:

  • 91% of respondents representing parts of APAC had indicated their opinion that every organization should deliver experiences on par with the best experience they had ever had, and 91% judged companies by customer-service quality.
  • 49% of respondents representing parts of APAC were comfortable with AI making decisions on their behalf if it improved speed and resolution, while 82% would give a virtual agent three attempts or fewer to resolve an issue.
  • 61% of respondents representing parts of APAC indicated they would switch to a competitor after three or fewer bad experiences with a favorite brand, and 17% indicated that one bad experience would be enough.
  • 86% of CX leaders representing parts of APAC expected autonomous AI agents to orchestrate customer experiences within three years, and they planned to spend an average of 32% of their customer service or experience budget on AI-powered CX technologies over the next 12 months.

Albert Nel, Senior Vice President and Regional Sales Leader, Genesys Asia Pacific, the firm that commissioned the survey, said, “As agentic AI becomes part of everyday customer engagement, organizations need to use it to reduce customer effort — not just automate interactions.”

*Limited to Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea