Australians are still spending about 113.5 million hours a year listening to hold music, which works out to roughly 9.3 hours per person, even as more businesses roll out AI tools to manage customer enquiries. The latest figures come from a large global survey by a digital workflow platform that spoke with 34,000 customers, frontline staff and executives, painting a detailed picture of how people feel when they deal with automated systems instead of speaking directly to a person.
The research suggests AI is making a dent in the problem, with automated systems estimated to have already saved around 10 million hours of wait time year-on-year for Australians. Many people actually welcome those tools, with about 58% saying they prefer automated options because they are quick and available around the clock. But there is a catch. Nearly half of respondents in Australia worry that too much AI will weaken the human side of service, and around two-thirds feel the technology struggles with more nuanced or complex issues, especially when it traps them in repetitive loops or makes it hard to reach a human, which almost 4 in 10 cite as their biggest frustration.
The stakes for businesses look high. Around 1 in 2 Australians say they are willing to walk away from a brand after just a single bad customer service experience, which means a clunky chatbot or a painful handover from bot to call centre can quickly turn into lost revenue and broken loyalty. Not all industries are performing equally either. In satisfaction rankings out of 4, retailers sit at the bottom on about 2.4 while banks are up near 3.1 with government agencies, manufacturers, healthcare and insurance, telcos, tech providers and non-profits spread in between. Retail appears to struggle most, because shoppers expect warmth and personalised attention even when the interaction happens entirely online.
Looking ahead, customer service in Australia seems to be moving toward a blended model where AI handles simple, repetitive tasks, such as password resets or tracking deliveries, while human agents focus on knotty, emotionally charged problems that need empathy and judgement. The research indicates people respond best when AI feels almost invisible, quietly smoothing the experience rather than drawing attention to itself, and when the transition from bot to human is seamless rather than forcing them to start again from scratch. If organisations can strike that balance, AI looks like it could free up staff to spend more time on complex issues and less time on basic queries, but if they get it wrong it seems just as likely customers will keep hanging up, switching brands and telling others about their bad experiences.
