AI, CX, and the End of Disconnected Listening

Despite the growing amount of customer feedback, most brands still struggle to act on what truly matters. 

Everyone’s asking for feedback. Few are truly listening.

Customers are sharing notes in chats, dropping reviews, raising issues in support tickets, and sounding off on social. But despite all that sharing, many don’t feel heard. And it’s not because brands lack the data. It’s because the most valuable signals are scattered, siloed, or simply ignored.

A recent report by BackEngine uncovers some unsettling truths: Nearly one in four companies surveyed has no one clearly responsible for customer feedback. Just 11.1% are using AI to analyse customer conversations. And less than a third of executives check in on that feedback more than once a month.

The consequences? Missed signals. Delayed reactions. And CX that fall far short of rising expectations. In a world of instant everything, collecting feedback in disjointed systems and acting on it weeks or months later just doesn’t cut it.

What’s needed now is something smarter. Something more connected. A system that listens in real time, filters the noise, and transforms raw feedback into meaningful action.

Isabelle Zdatny, Head of Thought Leadership at the XM Institute, Qualtrics, says, “This ongoing stream of authentic feedback helps organisations identify both emerging issues and systemic patterns that fundamentally transform how they prioritise and deliver CX improvements.”

That’s where unified feedback systems come in. These systems break down silos, connect the dots, and help brands move beyond vanity metrics to genuinely understand their customers. The impact would be better decisions, quicker turnarounds, and CX strategies that deliver.

Why Brands Are Failing to Listen at Scale

With so many feedback tools out there, from pop-up surveys to powerful social listening platforms, many think brands would be nailing customer understanding by now. But most aren’t.

The issue isn’t the effort. It’s that feedback is being gathered, but barely acted on.

“While surveys provide structured snapshots of customer sentiment, the most valuable insights often emerge from analysing unstructured, unsolicited feedback channels – those authentic conversations where customers speak candidly about their experiences without the constraints of predetermined questions,” says Isabelle. 

These channels, like chat transcripts, support tickets, and social media, contain the raw, unfiltered voice of the customer. And when analysed at scale, they offer rich context that traditional surveys can’t. 

Isabelle cites Hilton as an example. The company discovered that towel quality and quantity were affecting guest satisfaction significantly, not through surveys, but by mining text messages, call centre logs, and social posts. Without tapping into those “unsolicited” channels, this pain point might have gone unnoticed.

The message is clear: surface-level listening isn’t enough. The real insights often lie in the conversations brands aren’t actively seeking, but should be.

From Silos to Signal: The Rise of Unified Feedback Systems

CX isn’t suffering from a data drought. It’s suffering from a data disconnect.

As organisations grow, feedback fragments are scattered across apps, departments, and tools. And suddenly, no one has the full picture.

“The two biggest challenges are organisational silos and data fragmentation… Different teams own different channels… creating a disjointed view of the CX,” says Isabelle.

To tackle this, organisations are adopting enterprise-wide unified feedback systems. These are the systems that pull in data from every touchpoint, whether it’s a cashier interaction, an app review, or a support call. 

But it doesn’t stop at tech. Brands are also building cross-functional teams, aligning KPIs across departments, and embedding insights into everyday workflows. This unified approach enables brands to detect systemic issues rather than reacting to isolated events. 

Isabelle explains this with an example of KFC. They used such a system to analyse tens of thousands of open-text comments across regions. The insights revealed that fries had become “polarising” in Australia. The finding that led to both product experimentation and a reassessment of the brand’s promise of “craveable food.”

One overlooked detail, once surfaced, helped them realign what the brand promised with what customers actually experienced.

Turning Feedback into Real-Time Action

For decades, CX improvement followed a slow, survey-to-strategy pipeline. But now, that lag can be costly. 

“Companies with mature feedback systems are 6.5 times more likely to outperform competitors,” said Eli Portnoy, CEO and Founder of BackEngin, in a report.

Unified systems give brands a complete, real-time view of the customer. This lets teams respond faster and more effectively.

“Unified feedback fundamentally changes how quickly and effectively teams can respond because they’re no longer operating with partial information or waiting for problems to escalate,” says Isabelle.

For example, a service agent fielding a billing issue can now access a customer’s recent app activity, previous chat transcripts, and past survey results, on the spot. This context enables more empathetic and targeted responses, while identifying the underlying root cause, not just the immediate complaint.

Unified systems also help teams detect early warning signals. If similar complaints are popping up simultaneously in chat, calls, and social media, it suggests a deeper systemic issue. With real-time visibility, CX teams can address the root cause before it snowballs into a larger crisis.

Instead of reacting to symptoms, brands can now fix the system. And in doing so, transform CX from a reactive function into a proactive engine of value.

The Future Is Predictive, Not Just Reactive

Unified feedback systems aren’t just making responses faster. They’re reshaping how organisations design, deliver, and evolve their CXs.

Isabelle says, “When you can spot recurring themes in chat transcripts, social media mentions, and support tickets… product teams use them to fuel human-centred design processes and identify unmet needs that drive roadmap decisions.”

The truth is, customers rarely spell out what they want next. But their behaviour leaves clues. Unified feedback turns those clues into insights, helping teams across the organisation innovate faster.

It’s not just product teams that benefit. Brand strategists use these insights to close gaps between promise and delivery. If a brand says “fast service” but feedback shows long queues, that’s not a metric issue; it’s a trust issue.

And this isn’t wishful thinking. 

As per a latest report, over 80% of business and technical decision-makers see AI-led CX delivering value across every stage of the technology lifecycle. 

With AI models now able to predict loyalty scores for customers who never respond to surveys, brands are combining strategic oversight (like NPS) with real-time agility to cover more ground.

“Rather than replacement, we’re seeing an evolution toward complementary measurement systems… that together provide both the strategic oversight and operational agility that modern CX demands,” says Isaballe. 

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