AI Up, Service Down in Retail 2025

The ROI of Empathy in Customer Service

Customer service is where trust in your brand is tested. Not in a survey, but in the moment where the shopper decides whether to try again to explain their issue or give up and never buy again. The 2025 ORI shows that moment is breaking down, and it reveals a paradox at the heart of customer service. While AI use in service has surged from 69% to 88%, overall customer service adoption fell from 59% to 57%. While the fall is not dramatic, it does make me wonder whether we are investing in scale and losing touch and empathy in the process?

Progress in Automation, Setback in Empathy?

Across 116 global retailers benchmarked, Customer Service best practice adoption fell to 57%, making it one of the few declining categories this year. At the same time, AI chatbots surged to 88% adoption, up from 69% in 2024.

Only 49% offer persistent live chat across their sites (down from 53% last year).
Just 5% include service access in mobile headers, despite mobile driving 60%+ of all traffic.
63% provide service (chat, phone, or email) during checkout, ensuring help at the moment of purchase.

These results do make me wonder whether automation is rising, but connection is slipping. The retailers winning loyalty aren’t just replacing people with AI—they’re teaching AI to serve people better; they’re freeing their human agents to be able to fully show up in those moments of high complexity and high tension so that customers feel supported and understood.In a world where product parity is high, the experience of being cared for is what differentiates brands. The ORI data shows that shoppers reward clarity, accessibility, and reassurance:

60% of brands display customer service contact info in the cart.
44% now include support links on “no search results” pages.
68% of store associates capture customer emails, feeding loyalty and retention programs.

These touchpoints matter. Each interaction that resolves uncertainty—whether a chatbot’s quick fix or a store associate’s follow-up—builds emotional equity that competitors can’t replicate. Service has evolved from a back-office function into a frontline of trust.

AI + Empathy: Designing Intelligent Care

Retailers face a balancing act: how to combine AI efficiency with human empathy. 88% of companies now automate first-line queries, but without well-designed escalation paths, customers can feel trapped in a digital loop.The leaders are moving toward “intelligent service orchestration”—systems where bots and humans collaborate seamlessly. Key practices include:

Passing full context when escalating from chatbot to agent.
Training AI to detect frustration, urgency, or confusion.
Aligning tone and responses with brand personality.

AI isn’t the replacement of empathy—it’s its amplifier.

Global Insights: A Tale of Three Regions

North America leads in AI adoption (88%) but lags in omnichannel consistency. Live chat visibility and preference management dropped, highlighting an overreliance on automation without enough human follow-through.Europe excels in in-store service and mobile optimization (78% adoption), but its digital support often remains functional rather than emotional—strong on efficiency, weaker on connection.Latin America (Brazil) shines in trust-driven service:

100% offer free returns, and
42% provide free shipping with no thresholds. Still, digital personalization remains underdeveloped, leaving room to turn transparency into relationship equity.

The Untapped Goldmine: Post-Purchase Communication

Only 33% of confirmation emails include personalized content—a missed opportunity when customer attention is at its peak. Retailers who embed tips, recommendations, or loyalty invites in post-purchase messages transform a transaction into an ongoing dialogue.Turning these moments into relationship builders requires connected data between marketing, service, and fulfillment—exactly the kind of orchestration Salesforce Service Cloud and Data Cloud were built to enable.

Four Things Every Retailer Can Do to Make Service Better

Accessibility Everywhere – Persistent chat, visible contact options, and proactive FAQs reduce friction.
AI That Assists, Not Replaces – With 88% adoption (up from 69%), chatbots are ubiquitous; the leaders stand out through empathy, escalation design, and human orchestration.
Proactive Transparency – Transform notifications and order updates into brand-building interactions.
Human Data Loops – Store associates collecting email (+20 pts YoY) and SMS consent feed personalization and loyalty programs.

Measuring What Matters: The ROI of Human-Orchestrated Service

If service has become the place where trust in your brand is tested—and, increasingly, where loyalty is earned—then maybe it’s time to update the measuring stick too.Most retailers still evaluate service through a cost-center lens: how fast tickets close, how many calls agents handle, how much each contact costs. Those metrics made sense when service was a support function. They don’t make sense when service is a growth function.Today’s leaders are expanding the scorecard to reflect service’s real impact on customer confidence and the bottom line. Instead of asking how cheaply you solved a problem, ask:

Do supported customers spend more? (Lifetime Value uplift)
Does proactive service reduce churn? (Retention rate)
Do positive interactions drive repeat purchases? (Revenue influence)

The ROI of service isn’t just faster resolutions—it’s stronger relationships.For deeper insights into omnichannel best practices and customer service, explore the full 2025 OSF Omnichannel Retail Index.Do you want to go further? Contact OSF’s Advisory team to identify your best use cases, roadmap, and success metrics.

Author: Jessie Jackson

Jessie Jackson is a Senior Consultant, Practice Lead in OSF Digital´s Strategy group. She has 20+ years of experience as an omnichannel digital commerce business leader in the D2C industry. Jessie helps OSF clients with strategic planning, business leadership and creating exceptional customer experiences.

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