A new survey of consumer attitudes toward automated customer service carries a pointed message for collection operations leaning harder on artificial intelligence: customers are not opposed to bots, but they punish brands that make a live person hard to reach when automation stalls.
The Liveops 2026 Resolution Gap Report finds that 93% say it is extremely or very important that service makes it easy to reach a person when automated help cannot solve the issue. Notably, zero respondents rated easy human access as unimportant. The expectation also tracks with trust. Some 86% said knowing they can switch from automation to a person increases their confidence in a brand.
The report notes automation makes service harder when the issue involves billing or money, and when consumers are upset or need empathy. Those are precisely the moments that define a collection interaction, and they are governed by compliance obligations that leave little room for a bot to guess wrong.
The data also challenges a metric many operations track closely. Only 2% said automation alone would make them most confident their issue gets resolved, and just 5% said whether support is AI-assisted matters most to them. What customers want is fewer steps and fewer handoffs, cited by 26% as the single biggest priority. The report frames the divide bluntly: customers are measuring effort while many organizations are still measuring activity.
Where automation breaks down, the survey says, is the handoff. Only 10% described transfers from a bot to a human as always smooth, while 59% said handoffs feel difficult because they must explain the issue all over again. Failed automation also leaves a mark. Roughly 35% said they lose trust after an automated interaction fails, even when a person eventually resolves the matter.
Older consumers, a meaningful slice of many collection portfolios, feel this most acutely. The share who say automation makes service harder when there is no clear path to a human climbs to 59% of Boomers and 56% of Gen X, against 28% of Gen Z.
The takeaway for collection technology buyers is that AI maturity is not about how much gets automated. It is about routing simple inquiries quickly, escalating complex or emotional ones sooner, and carrying account context across every handoff so the consumer never starts over.
