What Are the Top Service Trends CEOs Can’t Ignore?
Why the Companies Rushing to Replace People with AI Are Already Reversing Course
The Research That Confirms What I’ve Been Saying for Years
I’ll be honest — I wasn’t surprised when I read this. But I was glad the data finally caught up.
According to new research from Gartner released in February 2026, half of all companies that cut customer service staff due to AI will rehire those workers by 2027 — often under different job titles, but doing essentially the same human-centered work. Gartner surveyed 321 customer service and support leaders in late 2025. Only 1 in 5 had actually reduced headcount due to AI. More than 55% report steady staffing even while serving more customers.
Meanwhile, Forrester Research’s 2026 Future of Work report found that 55% of employers now regret laying off workers for AI-related reasons. Klarna — which made global headlines in 2024 claiming its AI could do the work of 700 customer service reps — quietly began rehiring humans in 2025. The full story was covered by CX Dive in February 2026. By early 2026, Klarna’s CEO was calling human assistance a “VIP experience.”
Here’s what this tells me: AI is a powerful tool. But it cannot replicate the one thing that actually builds lasting customer loyalty — a genuine human connection. I wrote an entire book about this, and I’ve been watching organizations learn this lesson the hard way. You don’t have to. Read my earlier takes: AI is Replacing Employees; Will it Create an Employer’s Market? and How AI is Benefiting Customer and Employee Satisfaction.
Trend #1: The AI Overcorrection Is Creating a Human Experience Premium
Here’s the irony of the past two years: the rush to automate everything has inadvertently created a massive competitive opportunity for brands willing to double down on human connection. When every company automates the same touchpoints in the same way, personalization evaporates. Your customers notice. And a real human response has become a differentiator.
I explored this with AI product expert Aurélien Coq on Episode 136 of my Customer Service Revolution podcast. My view hasn’t changed: AI isn’t a job killer. It’s a tool that changes the nature of jobs and frees your people to do what humans do best. But you have to build the human infrastructure first, or the AI has nothing to support.
I said it in my book The Relationship Economy, and I’ll say it here:
“Being able to build true sustainable relationships is the biggest competitive advantage in a world where automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are eliminating the human experience, which is what creates the emotional connections that build true customer loyalty.” — John DiJulius, The Relationship Economy
For every CEO reading this: investing in human service skills is no longer a soft, values-based decision. It’s your single greatest competitive growth strategy.
Trend #2: Consistency Is the New Innovation
In a world of constant disruption — new AI tools, economic volatility, shifting consumer behaviors — your customers are craving something they can count on. I’ve seen this in every organization I’ve worked with: consistency has become its own form of competitive advantage.
This is a cornerstone of my X-Commandment Methodology. One of the most powerful tools in the framework is the Never & Always system — a set of non-negotiable service standards that define exactly what your customers can expect, every single time, regardless of which location they visit, which employee they talk to, or which channel they use.
“In today’s world, the only thing that is separating companies from offering another commodity is the relationship they have with their Customers. If you do not have a relationship with your Customer, you better be the cheapest.” — John DiJulius, The Customer Service Revolution
How to Apply This Trend in Your Organization
Start by mapping every customer touchpoint using the Customer Experience Cycle (CEC) framework. For each touchpoint, define the Never (what must never happen) and the Always (what must always happen). Assign ownership. Build accountability into your culture — not just your policy manual. Every customer, every time. That’s been my mantra for 25 years, and it still holds.
Trend #3: The Employee Experience IS the Customer Experience
I cannot say this enough: your customers will never experience something your employees don’t feel. This is the most consequential truth in all of customer experience, and yet most organizations still treat it as a nice idea rather than an operating principle.
The quiet cracking phenomenon we’re seeing right now — persistent disengagement that leads to silent performance decline and eventual turnover — cost the global economy an estimated $438 billion in 2024 alone, according to Gallup. Disengaged employees deliver disengaged service. It’s not a management opinion. It’s a predictable, measurable outcome.
My methodology addresses this directly through Commandment II: World-Class Internal Culture. The Employee Experience Model (T.E.E.M.) is the internal infrastructure that makes great external service possible at scale. I’ve seen it work at Starbucks, at Chick-fil-A, at The Ritz-Carlton. It will work in your organization too.
“Experience it forward. What employees experience, customers will. The best marketing is happy, engaged employees. Your customers will never be any happier than your employees.” — John DiJulius, The Customer Service Revolution
The EX / CX Connection in Practice
When you invest in your people — in their purpose, their growth, their standards, and their recognition — you’re building customer loyalty at its source. Read more in Why the Employee Experience Revolution and explore how we approach employee experience consulting with organizations like yours.
Trend #4: Service Aptitude Is Now a Hiring and Training Priority
As AI takes over more of the transactional work, the human interactions that remain carry disproportionate weight. Every touchpoint your team has with a customer now matters more than it did two years ago. That’s why one of the things I talk about most right now is what I call service aptitude — the innate and developed ability of an employee to consistently deliver extraordinary experiences, regardless of their role.
I explored this in detail in my blog How AI Will Impact the Employee Experience. As AI eliminates repetitive tasks, your people are freed to do what only humans can do: build relationships, empathize, and create moments that customers remember and talk about. But only if you’ve hired for service aptitude and trained it systematically.
Where I Recommend You Build This Capability
My Customer Experience Executive Academy (CXEA) is one of the most rigorous programs in the country for developing this capacity inside organizations. We teach leaders how to recruit for service aptitude, build onboarding systems that reinforce it, and create the kind of ongoing training culture that sustains it at scale. It’s the same approach I’ve used with Starbucks, The Ritz-Carlton, and Chick-fil-A.
Trend #5: Measuring Loyalty, Not Just Satisfaction
Here’s something I see constantly in my consulting work: leaders who are obsessed with satisfaction scores but haven’t built a single system to measure loyalty. CSAT tells you how a transaction felt. Loyalty tells you whether your customer is coming back — and whether they’re bringing others with them. Those are completely different things.
My Day in the Life of a Customer framework maps the full journey your customer takes — from first awareness through long-term relationship — identifying the precise moments that build or erode loyalty at each stage. In The Customer Service Revolution, I wrote something that has stayed with me ever since:
“A complaining client is giving us the opportunity to make things right; it’s the silent ones that hurt us. They don’t remain silent once they leave our business.” — John DiJulius, The Customer Service Revolution
The Loyalty Metrics I’d Recommend Tracking
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- Customer retention and renewal rates
- Referral volume and source tracking
- Customer lifetime value
- Repeat visit and purchase frequency
What the Best Organizations in the World Have in Common
After 25+ years of working with the world’s most recognized service brands, I can tell you exactly what separates the ones pulling ahead right now from the ones scrambling. They’ve deployed technology thoughtfully — without abandoning the human infrastructure that earns trust. They’ve defined their service standards so clearly that consistency is a system, not a hope. And they’ve built cultures where their people grow alongside the company, so customers feel that energy in every single interaction.
They’ve made, as I say in What a Customer Service Revolution Really Is, price irrelevant — because the experience they deliver is so consistently extraordinary that their customers never think to compare.
My Four Priorities for CEOs in 2026
Priority 1: Define Your Experience Standards Before the Next Disruption
Build your Never & Always framework now. Don’t wait for the next AI wave, the next economic shift, or the next round of turnover. When your standards are defined, everything else — technology, new hires, new channels — has a culture to plug into.
Priority 2: Audit Your Employee Experience with the Same Rigor as Your Customer Experience
Use the T.E.E.M. framework to walk through your employee journey from day one onward. Find where your people are quietly cracking — and fix the systems, not just the symptoms.
Priority 3: Train for Service Aptitude at Every Level
Consistency starts with shared language, shared standards, and shared purpose. That has to run from the C-suite all the way to the front line. Explore our CX and EX consulting options and find the right fit for your organization.
Priority 4: Measure Loyalty, Not Just Satisfaction
Shift your dashboard. Know which customers are staying, which are leaving, and exactly why — then build the relationship infrastructure to change those numbers, guided by the Day in the Life of a Customer framework.
I’d Love to Work with You
My team and I have had the privilege of working alongside some of the world’s most iconic service brands — Starbucks, The Ritz-Carlton, Chick-fil-A, Lexus, and Marriott — to build and sustain world-class customer and employee experiences. Our methodology isn’t a trend. It’s a proven, trademarked framework that transforms how organizations operate from the inside out.
While others are rehiring the employees they already let go, your organization can be the one that never had to. That starts with a conversation.
→ Schedule a Complimentary Advisor Call — Let’s talk about your service strategy
→ Register for the CX Executive Academy — Class of 2026 — The master’s degree in Customer Experience
→ Explore the X-Commandment Methodology — The full CX & EX framework
→ Get The Relationship Economy — My book on building human connection in a high-tech world
→ Get The Customer Service Revolution — The book that started a movement
→ Listen: How AI Will Impact Customer Service — Episode 136 — The Customer Service Revolution Podcast
