Customers still want a person: put AI behind your sales and service line, not in front of it

By Jason Sibley

Most customers would rather deal with a person. A recent UK survey makes that clear. Read it before putting a chatbot or an AI voice on your front line.

Use AI to help the person answering your phone or inbox work faster and prepare better. Don't use it to replace them.

What 1,000 UK adults told TCN

These figures come from TCN's State of Customer Service 2026 executive summary for the UK. TCN sells contact-centre software, so this is vendor research. Treat it as one useful data point rather than a verdict. The panel was 1,000 UK adults.

When contacting a business, 84% said they'd rather talk to a human agent, and 8% said an AI agent.

Email (45%) and talking to a live agent by phone (40%) were the two most preferred ways to contact customer service. Online chat with a live agent came in at 31%, text at 18% and social media at 14%. Most small firms already have email and phone.

On security, 53% said they're more comfortable giving secure information through a live person. Only 16% said the same of an automated phone system.

Where customers will accept AI

TCN reports that 37% find AI helpful when they contact a business (8% very helpful and 29% somewhat), while 29% find it unhelpful.

Asked what they'd be comfortable with AI doing, people picked narrow jobs:

• directing them to the correct person or department (35%)
• providing options for solutions (23%)
• answering questions about an item or service (22%)
• technical support (22%)

Only 9% would be comfortable with AI collecting payment information. And 29% said they wouldn't be comfortable with AI accomplishing anything at all.

I read that as acceptance of AI for small, clear jobs, with a human wanted for anything that matters.

Trust is thin with personal data

TCN says 53% don't trust providing personal data to an AI agent. That splits into 30% who trust it "not very much" and 23% who trust it "not at all".

If your sales or service line involves names, addresses, order details or anything financial, that's a lot of people who'd rather not hand it to a bot. You won't see them complain, either. They'll leave the chat or ring a competitor.

What you can put into an AI tool depends on data protection rules and the tool's own terms. This isn't legal advice. If you're unsure, ask whoever advises you on data protection before entering customer details.

Behind the line, not in front

Keep a person answering the phone, emails and messages. Use AI to help them prepare:

• Summarise a long email thread so whoever replies doesn't have to re-read every message.
• Draft a reply for the person to check, change and send under their own name.
• Pull the order history, the last quote or the previous conversation into one short note before a call.
• Turn rough call notes into a tidy follow-up task.
• Flag what's missing from an enquiry, such as a date, a location or a budget, so the person knows what to ask.

The customer gets a better-informed human. That fits what TCN's respondents said they want. Our guide on AI for customer emails covers the email side in more detail. If your enquiries tend to go quiet after the first reply, read sales follow-up that survives the inbox.

Where it's fine at the front

The survey suggests two places where AI is more likely to be welcome:

• Routing. Pointing someone to the right person or department was the most accepted job (35%).
• Simple product or service questions, such as opening hours, what you cover or what a service includes, where you've written the answers yourself and checked them.

Two conditions apply. First, there must be an obvious way to reach a person, on every screen and at every step. Second, never let it take payments. Only 9% were comfortable with that. It isn't worth risking customers' trust.

If you're weighing this up, our guides on an AI chatbot for your small business website and whether an AI receptionist is worth it cover the practical questions. If customers reach you on WhatsApp, read Meta's business agent and the handoff to a person. If you use AI anywhere customers can see it, should I tell clients I use AI is worth ten minutes.

A prompt for the person on the phone

This is for whoever picks up the enquiry, whether that's you or a colleague. Paste in the email thread or your call notes, keeping payment details out.

I run a small UK business. Below is an enquiry from a customer, either an
email thread or my notes from a phone call. Please do the following, using
British English and a warm, plain tone.

1. Summarise the enquiry in no more than five lines.
2. List what the customer actually wants, in order of importance.
3. Draft a short reply in my usual tone: friendly, direct, no jargon.

Rules:
- Use only the information I've pasted in below.
- Do not invent prices, dates, availability, discounts or promises.
- Where something is missing or unclear, write [OWNER TO FILL IN] in the
  draft and list the gaps at the end so I can check them.
- Do not ask for or repeat any payment card details.

Enquiry:
[paste the email thread or call notes here]

Read the draft before it goes anywhere. You're the one the customer is dealing with.

Check it with your own customers

TCN's numbers describe 1,000 UK adults in general. Your customers might be different, so find out before spending money on tools. This takes an afternoon.

Five answers won't be a statistical sample. But they're your customers, and your numbers beat anyone else's benchmark, including a survey like this one.

• [ ] Pick five recent customers, ideally a mix of new and long-standing.
• [ ] Ask each how they like to reach you: email, phone, text, chat or something else.
• [ ] Ask whether they'd mind an automated assistant answering first, if they could reach a person straight away.
• [ ] Ask what they'd never want a machine to handle.
• [ ] Write down the answers and look for a pattern.

If you'd like a hand with this

At My AI Apprentice we run AI sessions for small businesses, including setting up this kind of behind-the-scenes support so your people stay in front. No pressure either way.