How Can Retailers Improve Shoppers’ Sense of Closure When Concerns Emerge?

In a recent survey of 1,000 U.S. shoppers profiled by Capacity’s Closure Index, the top-line statistic suggests retailers have a bit of work to do in enhancing their customer support apparatus.

According to the index, the majority (58%) of shoppers polled indicated that they are currently walking away from support interactions with their issues fully resolved. Of the remainder, 37% indicated that while their identified problem(s) were mostly resolved, lingering worries remained on the table; 13% suggested that their issue(s) were only partly resolved; and 6% expressed the notion that their concerns weren’t addressed whatsoever.

“Resolution is what companies measure. Closure is what customers feel,” David Karandish, founder and CEO of Capacity, said in a press release.

“It’s clear that customer support has become very good at closing tickets, but far less consistent at delivering confidence. Customers want speed, but they also want to know the issue won’t resurface,” he added.

How Can Retailers Improve Shoppers’ Sense of Satisfaction and Closure When Purchase Problems Arise?

Other notable findings produced by the index include:

• The overall closure score was pegged at 79, a figure which suggests that customer issues are often mostly or fully resolved after an interaction. However, as Capacity noted, it also “signals meaningful room for improvement for call centers.”
• Unresolved, or less-than-satisfactorily resolved, issues are big trouble for merchants. A third (33%) of shoppers state they will abandon a brand after a single unresolved or partially resolved customer support issue.
• AI support still has a lot of room to make up versus human agents. About three-quarters (75%) of respondents indicated that they felt true closure after support conversations with human agents. That number fell to less than half (48%) of respondents who said the same about AI chat support resolutions.
• The three primary levers to create closure, at least according to the index researchers: Clear communication (52%) around what happened, the fix, and what comes next; the speed at which resolution is reached (43%), particularly around both routine and time-sensitive concerns; and the seamless ability to migrate from an AI chatbot to a human agent (85%) was cited by a vast majority of those polled.

It’s that last bit that the Capacity index’s authors emphasized — that direct human involvement remained a cornerstone facet of any worthwhile customer service solution currently being tested by real-world shoppers. The push, enacted by many retailers, to offload service resolution to agentic AI solutions may end up backfiring.

“True closure requires an intelligent system that adapts to each individual’s needs and ensures a seamless bridge to a human the moment it’s required. That final moment of comprehensive reassurance is where trust is either built or quietly lost,” Karandish concluded.