What Consumers Really Want from AI Customer Support: DevCom CTO Andrew Dovgal on What Works

AI has quietly become the front door to customer support. In a recent Clutch survey of 422 consumers, 87% said they’ve used AI-powered customer support and 72% use it regularly. But widespread adoption hasn’t translated into universal trust — customers now judge these tools not by how fast they respond, but by whether they actually resolve their issues.

Against this backdrop, software experts from DevCom are weighing in on what differentiates AI support that retains customers from systems that quietly drive them away.

The survey exposes a clear gap between expectation and experience: 81% of consumers expect AI to resolve an issue in under five minutes, yet 59% have run into slow or unresponsive AI support, and 81% have felt a system actively kept them from reaching a human. Speed without resolution simply shifts frustration further down the line.

For Andrew Dovgal, CTO of DevCom, the fix starts at the design stage:

Good AI customer support isn’t just about giving users a faster chatbot. From a product design standpoint, it’s about building a support experience that is clear, contextual, and trustworthy from the start. The best implementations guide users through specific tasks, connect AI to accurate business data, make escalation to a human seamless, and continuously measure whether the AI is actually resolving issues and not just generating responses.

• 87% of consumers have used AI customer support, with 72% using it regularly
• 81% expect AI to resolve their issue in under five minutes
• 59% have experienced slow or unresponsive AI support
• 81% have felt AI support was intentionally blocking access to a human agent
• 67% have considered stopping or have stopped doing business with a company after a poor AI support experience
• 62% are willing to give AI full access to their account history in exchange for more personalized help

The data points to a consistent theme: customers reward systems that resolve issues, escalate cleanly, and remain transparent. That’s the difference between AI as a deflection tactic and AI as a genuine support layer — and it’s a product and engineering challenge, not a plug-in feature.

At DevCom, we help businesses build support experiences that meet those expectations through AI-powered chatbot development, AI assistant development, and AI agent development. Well-designed systems should:

• Guide users through specific tasks rather than just answering questions
• Connect to accurate, real-time business data so responses reflect reality
• Hand off to a human seamlessly, carrying full conversation context so customers never need to repeat themselves
• Track actual resolution rates — not just deflection — to prove the AI is helping

When asked what would make them trust AI support more, consumers were direct: 63% want to be able to escalate to a human at any point, 51% want transparency about what the AI can and can’t do, and 40% want more accurate, personalized answers. In other words, trust isn’t built through automation alone — it’s built through clarity about the system’s limits and confidence that a human is available when those limits are hit.

The Clutch findings send a clear signal: AI customer support succeeds when it enhances the customer experience and doesn’t entirely replace the human element. The most successful companies pair efficiency with effectiveness — resolving simple issues quickly while maintaining a seamless, context-preserving path to human help.

At DevCom, we build custom AI support solutions designed around that balance, so faster service also means better service.