6 customer experience automation examples from leading brands

Customer experience automation is raising the bar for customer interactions. See how six leading brands used customer experience automation to cut costs, boost satisfaction, and deliver better service at scale.

Customer expectations have never been higher. 80% of customers rank speed, convenience, knowledgeable help, and friendly service as the most important factors behind a positive customer experience, and 65% of customers have cut spending with organizations that didn’t meet their expectations.

Unfortunately, the gap between what customers expect and what most organizations can realistically deliver keeps widening. However, customer experience automation platforms are helping to close that gap.

This guide will cover six real-world customer experience automation examples from leading brands across different industries and the results they achieved.

What is customer experience automation?

Customer experience automation (CXA) uses AI, machine learning, and connected data to deliver faster, more consistent interactions across the customer journey. Instead of relying on human agents for every request, it automates the interaction while keeping the customer experience personalized. This helps organizations reduce friction, respond faster, and build stronger customer relationships at scale.

Examples of customer experience automation include:

• AI virtual agent detects a shipping delay, identifies affected customers, and proactively sends resolution updates before anyone has to call.

• AI agent assistant provides real-time guidance for agents mid-conversation, suggesting next-best actions and relevant knowledge articles as the interaction unfolds.

• AI-powered routing directs customers to the right agent or resource instantly, based on their history, intent, and the nature of their request.

• Automated call summaries and case notes are generated after every interaction, eliminating manual after-call work.

• AI-powered interaction analytics flag frustration in real time so supervisors can intervene before a difficult interaction becomes a lost customer.

• Proactive outbound engagement triggered by a renewal date, a missed payment, or a product issue.

These capabilities shift customer experiences from reactive to proactive. Instead of waiting for issues to arise, organizations can anticipate needs, resolve problems earlier, and support customers more efficiently at every stage.

Why is customer experience automation important?

Even when customers love a brand or product, 59% are ready to walk away after multiple poor experiences, and 17% will leave after just one bad experience. On the other hand, 43% of customers would pay more for convenience, and 42% would pay more for a friendly and welcoming experience.

Contact volumes are rising, customer expectations are increasing, and the cost of poor service has never been higher. Low-quality CX increases churn, inflates acquisition costs, and damages reputations that took years to build. Meanwhile, the pressure to do more with less isn’t going away.

Customer experience automation helps to scale service efficiently, reduce costs, and deliver more consistent, personalized customer experiences across channels. In turn, customers get faster answers, smoother interactions, and proactive service that makes them feel valued.

The benefits for customers translate to benefits for the business: higher satisfaction scores, stronger retention, higher customer lifetime value, stronger relationships, and a major competitive advantage.

Six real-world customer experience automation examples.

Customer experience automation looks different depending on the industry, company size, and specific challenges. For some, the focus is on reducing handle times and taking repetitive work off agents’ plates. For others, it’s scaling customer self-service or unifying disconnected channels to create a stronger omnichannel customer experience.

The six CX automation examples below span industries and use cases, but they all point to the same outcome: CXA makes service faster and more consistent, without losing the human touch.

United Rentals.

United Rentals has always aimed to deliver the high level of service its customers expect. But with more than 1,400 locations, 24/7 emergency support, and operations spanning everything from equipment reservations to urgent repair logistics, maintaining a consistent experience at that scale was no small feat.

With approximately 40% of calls coming from branch overflow and 60% from web traffic and toll-free lines, the organization saw an opportunity to improve routing precision and overall performance. They also struggled with the fact that quality management relied on selective call sampling, limiting visibility into the full customer experience.

United Rentals partnered with Talkdesk to implement customer experience automation solutions, including Talkdesk Copilot, Talkdesk Navigator, and Talkdesk Quality Management.

• Talkdesk Navigator allows customers to describe their needs in their own words instead of navigating traditional IVR menus, achieving 76% routing accuracy with a clear path to 80%.

• AI-powered evaluation now analyzes every customer interaction, replacing selective sampling and giving supervisors complete visibility into performance.

  
  

• Agent training time was reduced by 50%, helping teams onboard faster and operate more efficiently.

• 100% of calls are now recorded with AI-powered quality analysis, creating a stronger foundation for continuous improvement.

United Rentals has improved its ability to deliver consistent, personalized service across its global operations, while giving teams the insight and tools needed to keep improving over time.

Rocky Brands.

For over 90 years, Rocky Brands has built a loyal following for its rugged footwear and apparel across brands like Rocky®, Georgia Boot®, and Durango®. But as ecommerce grew and seasonal demand surged, their customer service teams struggled to keep up.

Rocky Brands was operating on a legacy system that lacked the flexibility to handle fluctuating volumes, putting pressure on agents during high-demand periods. A previous attempt to introduce chat support exposed deeper issues with a fragmented tech stack, forcing agents to juggle multiple tools and workflows just to manage simple customer requests. All of these were taking a toll on service quality, response times, and employee retention.

Rocky Brands implemented Talkdesk Retail Experience Cloud to modernize its customer experience strategy, supported by AI-powered capabilities through CX automation. The organization replaced more than 20 legacy tools with a unified platform and expanded from two to more than five communication channels, including chat and SMS.

Here’s how Rocky Brands transformed its service:

• Talkdesk Copilot surfaces relevant information like order details, return policies, and customer history in real time to help agents respond faster and more accurately.

• AI-powered virtual agents now handle 40% of chat interactions, helping maintain abandonment rates below 10% even during peak demand.

• AI and reporting tools helped clear a backlog of thousands of emails and reduced response times by 70%.

• Talkdesk Workforce Management provides forecasting and planning capabilities to prepare for seasonal spikes without overburdening staff.

• A new team in the Dominican Republic enables 24/7 support, powered by AI-enhanced multilingual capabilities.

Rocky Brands boosted efficiency, reduced operational strain, and empowered agents with the right tools to create more scalable, consistent customer experiences.

Michaels.

For over 50 years, Michaels has helped customers across North America bring their creative ideas to life. With more than 1,200 stores and an ecommerce platform offering over 40,000 products, customer demand continued to grow and began outpacing the team’s ability to deliver consistent service.

Siloed support teams across in-store and online channels created disconnected experiences, while a complex knowledge management system made it difficult for agents to quickly find the information they needed. After-call work often took five to seven minutes, and onboarding new agents could take up to 90 days. Service levels dropped to around 20%, highlighting the gap between staffing and performance.

Michaels partnered with Talkdesk to modernize its customer experience with AI-powered capabilities. They deployed Talkdesk Retail Experience Cloud along with Talkdesk Copilot, using advanced analytics as part of a broader CXA-driven transformation.

Here’s how Michaels significantly improved both agent efficiency and service performance:

• Talkdesk Copilot provides real-time assistance, including conversation review and auto-summarization for faster, more accurate responses.

• After-call work was reduced from five to seven minutes to just 30–60 seconds.

• Service levels increased from around 20% to 89% year-over-year.

• Call avoidance rates dropped from 25% to 0.2%, indicating higher engagement and better customer accessibility.

• The support team was reduced from 40 agents to 26 while boosting service quality.

Customer experience automation helped Michaels create a more efficient, scalable customer service operation that resulted in happier customers and employees.

Checkr.

Data platform Checkr helps organizations modernize their hiring process and build trusted workplaces through fast, accurate background checks. Since its founding in 2014, the company has processed hundreds of thousands of checks each month. As demand grew, so did customer support volume. Much of that volume was driven by repeat questions about report status, exceptions, and common processes.

Handling those inquiries manually was resource-intensive and made it harder for agents to focus on more complex issues. Checkr saw an opportunity to expand self-service while maintaining the high standards required in a compliance-sensitive industry.

Checkr implemented Talkdesk Autopilot, powered by Talkdesk Customer Experience Automation. They used AI virtual agents to create more conversational self-service experiences that let customers ask questions in their own words and transition seamlessly to a live agent without losing context or forcing them through traditional IVR menus.

Self-service rates began at 7% at launch, but improved quickly as the team used Talkdesk Interaction Analytics and reporting to optimize performance. Within two weeks, containment reached 70%, and over time, self-service for automated query types climbed to 85%.

The impact extended across the entire support operation:

• Self-service for automated query types reached 85%, up from 7% at launch.

• Containment climbed to 70% within two weeks as workflows were refined.

• Average handle time dropped by 56%.

• Talkdesk Autopilot has supported more than 400,000 customer conversations.

• Wait times and abandonment rates decreased, while first contact resolution (FCR) and customer satisfaction score (CSAT) improved.

With routine inquiries handled autonomously, Checkr was able to reduce strain on its support team and reinvest in other areas of the business. The shift also gave managers more flexibility to allocate resources where they were needed most. Now, Checkr’s AI-first approach spans resolution, agent assistance, and information gathering for a more efficient and responsive support model.

Arbella Insurance.

For nearly four decades, Arbella Insurance has built its reputation on delivering reliable, high-quality service to customers across New England. With nearly 1,000 employees supporting everything from policy issuance to complex claims, providing the right experience at the right moment is critical. When policyholders are dealing with accidents, billing disputes, or claims questions, they expect fast and empathetic service.

However, Arbella’s service evolved into a patchwork of disconnected systems over time. Separate platforms for voice, chat, email, and internal messaging created data silos and forced agents to switch between multiple tools during every interaction. Even simple tasks, like locating compliance scripts, often required searching through paper documents or outdated knowledge bases. This added unnecessary delays and frustration for both agents and customers.

They knew something needed to change, so Arbella launched a large-scale transformation to modernize its customer experience. The initiative replaced legacy systems across UCaaS, CCaaS, and CRM in a single coordinated rollout to create a fully connected, AI-ready environment. Arbella implemented Talkdesk Financial Services Experience Cloud for Insurance, along with AI-driven solutions like Talkdesk Autopilot, Talkdesk Copilot, and QM Assist.

With a unified platform in place, Arbella quickly began to see improvements:

• Service levels increased by 20%.

• Average handle time decreased by 15 to 45 seconds per interaction, depending on complexity.

• Customer satisfaction scores rose by 3%.

• Compliance scripts and procedural guidance are now delivered instantly through centralized knowledge management.

• Routine call types, including policy, billing, and FAQ inquiries, are handled automatically through Talkdesk Autopilot.

When they implemented CXA, Arbella reduced inefficiencies and gave agents more time to focus on higher-value interactions. Automation now handles routine requests, while a unified view of customer interactions helps agents respond faster and with greater accuracy.

BankUnited.

BankUnited is a national bank with locations in Florida, New York, and Texas. Built on a culture of entrepreneurial thinking, trust, and customer-first service, the bank sets a high bar for every interaction. From simple account questions to more complex financial conversations, CX is crucial in this industry. But as customer volumes grew, maintaining that level of consistency across channels became increasingly difficult.

BankUnited implemented Talkdesk Financial Services Experience Cloud along with Talkdesk Autopilot, Talkdesk Copilot, Talkdesk Identity, and Talkdesk Interaction Analytics. After moving towards CXA, they saw the following results:

• Abandonment rates dropped to 5.3%.

• IVR containment increased by 15–20%.

• Self-service reached 16% of interactions.

• NPS and CSAT scores improved during the transition.

With a more connected and intelligent platform in place, BankUnited was able to scale its customer experience without sacrificing the quality required for financial conversations. Automation now supports routine interactions, while agents have better context and tools to handle more nuanced and sensitive conversations.

Across all six organizations, the pattern is clear: customer experience automation doesn’t solve just one problem. It creates a strong foundation for ongoing improvement, where better data, smarter routing, and more capable agents continue to drive results over time.

Automate customer experiences with Talkdesk.

These CX automation examples highlight how organizations across industries are building more connected, efficient, and scalable customer experiences without overwhelming service teams.

Talkdesk Customer Experience Automation brings together AI, data, and orchestration to support stronger CX. From AI-powered virtual agents that resolve common requests to intelligent routing that connects customers to the right resource instantly, Talkdesk helps organizations move beyond managing interactions to building relationships.

Explore what’s possible with Talkdesk CXA. View use cases and start your pilot today.