Customers are not forgiving of chatbots after a negative experience

Customers say they are open to using customer service chatbots, but only 27% of customers say they would be willing to try a chatbot again after a negative experience, according to a Gartner survey.

Eric Keller, senior director analyst in the Gartner Customer Service & Support Practice, unpacks the from the Gartner survey of 3 566 B2B and B2C customers, conducted in February and March 2026.

He explains why chatbot adoption remains low, how negative experiences affect customers’ future willingness to use chatbots, and how service leaders can build adoption without sacrificing customer trust.

Why does chatbot adoption remain low when nearly half of customers say they are willing to use one?

While 49% of customers said they would have been willing to use a chatbot if the company had provided one, only 7% used a chatbot or digital assistant during their most recent service interaction.

Customers may express interest in new service channels in theory, but when they need help, their behaviour is shaped by past experiences.

If chatbots have previously misunderstood their issue, provided generic information or made it harder to reach a person, customers are more likely to choose another channel.

In fact, Gartner found that customers were approximately three times more likely to use third-party GenAI tools than company-provided chatbots during their most recent service interaction.

Service and support leaders should account for this gap when estimating chatbot adoption and ROI. Stated willingness indicates potential demand, but actual adoption will depend on whether customers view the chatbot as a reliable and efficient path to resolution.

How does a negative chatbot experience affect future adoption?

Customers give chatbots a short leash. Only 27% said they would be willing to try a chatbot again after a negative experience. This creates a “leaky bucket” problem: one unsuccessful interaction can discourage future use, even as the chatbot’s capabilities improve.

Service leaders should prioritise reliability over reach. A chatbot that consistently resolves a targeted set of issues will build more customer confidence than one that attempts to handle every issue but frequently fails.

“Service leaders should prioritise reliability over reach.”

How can service leaders increase chatbot adoption without damaging customer trust?

Leaders should begin with targeted, thoroughly tested deployments. They should identify issue types with a proven high rate of successful resolution, clearly communicate what the chatbot can do and expand its scope only after performance is reliable.

Chatbots should serve as seamless connectors to human support, not containment traps. If the chatbot cannot resolve an issue with high confidence, it should provide a visible path to a human agent and pass along the information and context already collected.

Gartner found that 87% of customers say access to a human agent is essential when companies use GenAI in customer service.

The goal should not be to keep every interaction inside the chatbot. It should be to guide each customer to the fastest and most effective path to resolution, whether that path is AI-led, human-led or a combination of both.

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