Being heard keeps customers coming back for more
As economic uncertainty strains household budgets, consumers are becoming more selective about where they put their hard-earned money and less tolerant of brands that fail to deliver.
Promising products and services can only get businesses so far. Customers who feel ignored or poorly served have little reason to stick around when alternatives are easily within reach.
Customer service has thus become a crucial competitive edge in an increasingly crowded retail market.
With products and prices easier to compare, businesses are fighting just as hard over the quality of experience they deliver.
Poor service
A survey by software company Genesys found that 85 percent of consumers globally have either spent less with a brand or stopped buying from it after experiencing poor customer service.
“Today’s consumers don’t just compare experiences between direct competitors. They compare them against every experience they’ve ever had,” the report read. “The consequences for brands that don’t meet those expectations can be high.”
Here at home, gone are the days when those who can offer the most competitive prices win the market.
A 2025 study by global market research and data analytics firm Milieu Insight showed that 55 percent of Filipino online shoppers are more likely to buy from sellers who communicate responsively and provide timely updates.
Such attention to good customer service is reflected in the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Statista’s Philippines’ Best Customer Service 2027, which recognized 306 companies based on more than 90,000 customer evaluations.
The survey “sought to identify those businesses that gave premium service to clients. They were companies that people liked and, more importantly, were more likely to recommend to others because of the quality of their customer service,” the Inquirer said.
Inquirer survey
Okada Manila, Grand Hyatt Manila and Dior led the overall rankings, standing out in a survey that stretched across 78 categories of retailers and service providers
Half of each company’s score in the evaluation came from how strongly customers would recommend the brand.
Accessibility, customer focus, quality of communication, professional competence and range of services made up the rest.
Those criteria put the spotlight on the details customers feel in real time, such as how easy a company is to reach, how clearly it communicates and how well its customer service system can resolve concerns.
The strongest performers make the entire experience for their customers, from purchase to concern resolution, easier to trust and easier to return to.
Keeping the human
As businesses scramble to put artificial intelligence (AI) on the customer-service front line, getting it wrong can be worse than arriving late to the bandwagon.
Automated customer service that ignores what consumers actually need, or fails to establish genuine connection with them, risks doing more harm than good.
About seven in 10 Filipino customers, or 73 percent, said they had run into “AI amnesia,” according to a recent survey by cloud communications platform Twilio.
It is the digital equivalent of being passed from one desk to another and having to tell the same story all over again. The system loses track of earlier interactions, which forces customers to repeat their concern as they move through the customer service process.
And the frustration has consequences for many businesses.
The same share of Filipino consumers said they stopped using the AI agent when AI amnesia happened, usually asking for a human representative instead or dropping the inquiry altogether when reaching one proved just as difficult.
For 4 percent of consumers, meanwhile, that poor customer service experience was enough to push them away from the brand for good.
That does not mean businesses should turn away from AI in customer service. When used well, it can make the entire system more efficient and free live human agents to handle the problems that require judgment and empathy.
But efficiency matters only if customers feel their concerns are heard and properly attended to.
For companies competing in a market that grows more and more competitive each day, customer service should be part of the product itself. Businesses must treat customer service with the same investment and attention that go into the products and services they offer.
