Customer expectations are rising. And CX listening challenges are putting traditional approaches to the test.

People move fast, skip surveys, and share feedback on their own terms — and they often do it in places brands don’t own like public reviews, social platforms, and peer communities that shape perception long before a customer ever engages directly.

At the same time, AI-driven search is reshaping how customers discover, evaluate, and talk about businesses. Search is no longer just a list of links. It’s an interpretation layer that pulls from reviews, sentiment, and third-party signals to form opinions at scale.

It’s the perfect reputation management storm for enterprise brands, most of which simply aren’t built to keep up. Data lives in silos. Feedback loops lag behind. And while organizations are collecting more signals than ever, fewer of them lead to meaningful action.

This is the new challenge for CX leaders: how to listen deeply across a growing mix of channels, journeys, and behaviors — and make that insight useful before it goes stale.

To meet that challenge, leading organizations are expanding their CX programs into something broader: Human Experience (HX). HX brings together customer input, employee perspective, and brand perception into a connected system of insight.

Let’s take a look at 8 of the most pressing CX listening challenges for multi-location brands right now, and how to solve each one with an HX-centric approach.

Challenge #1: Survey fatigue and declining response rates

Why it’s happening

Long-form, end-of-journey surveys are fading fast. Customers move too quickly now and expect brands to do the same. Even when they’re open to sharing feedback, they want it to feel relevant, immediate, and worth their time.

That’s the disconnect. Most customer experience teams still rely heavily on post-interaction surveys, often delivered hours or days after the moment that mattered. It’s too late. And it feels like a chore.

The good news is that people still want to be heard. In fact, 67% of consumers say it’s important that brands follow up about their experience. They just don’t want to answer ten questions to do it. They’re looking for smarter ways to engage.

How to solve it

From an HX perspective, listening needs to happen in the moment, not after the fact.

Instead of waiting until the end of the journey, brands need to capture feedback as it happens, through microsurveys, event-based triggers, and behavioral signals baked into the digital user experience.

Small moments reveal big truths. A single question on a checkout page. A thumb rating in a help article. A review prompt timed to an in-store visit. These micro-interactions offer real-time customer insights without overwhelming the customer, and they create a continuous stream of Voice of Customer (VoC) data that’s far more reflective of what’s actually happening.

Here’s what that looks like in action. RS Group partnered with Forsta to embed targeted microsurveys across key digital touchpoints like search, checkout, and product pages. The result? Over 22,000 pieces of actionable feedback, tied directly to product decisions and customer journey improvements.

The path forward isn’t more surveys. It’s better signals, captured at the right time, and turned into action without delay.

Challenge #2: Surveys alone don’t tell the whole story

Why it’s happening

Customers don’t just speak through surveys. They leave signals across customer touchpoints including reviews, chats, social posts, and call center transcripts. And they often do it without addressing the brand directly.

And while customer service representatives may catch issues in conversation, those insights rarely make it back to the core CX program.

If you’re only listening through structured surveys, you’re missing the bigger picture: emerging risks, unmet needs, and the everyday friction customers won’t take the time to explain in a survey.

How to solve it

Brands need a modern Voice of Customer program to connect the dots. That means integrating VoE (employee feedback), brand perception insights, and operational data alongside traditional VoC signals. With a unified view, brands can catch what surveys miss, and act before problems scale.

This is where machine learning and AI-powered text analytics come in. Forsta ingests and structures large volumes of unstructured data, surfacing real-time themes, sentiment shifts, and root causes across every channel. You see what customers are actually saying, whether or not they fill out a form.

The payoff is faster issue detection, more personalized interactions, and insights that go beyond lagging indicators. Listening at scale isn’t about adding more surveys. It’s about understanding the full story behind every signal.

Challenge #3: Fragmented journeys and siloed data

Why it’s happening

Customers don’t experience departments. They move fluidly across channels, researching online, chatting with support, and hopefully visiting a store. It’s all part of one journey in their eyes.

Most organizations still manage CX through siloed systems and teams, each optimizing its own slice without visibility into the full journey.

Inevitably, this creates blind spots, journey friction, and missed opportunities to drive customer satisfaction at the moments that matter.

How to solve it

HX starts by mapping the journey from the outside in. Align systems and insights around how customers actually behave, not how teams are organized.

Forsta’s centralized data hub pulls in customer listening data from every source, from interactions and reviews to employee feedback and brand signals, for a single, connected view. This creates the reliable source of truth needed to cut across silos and highlights where friction is costing you trust and revenue.

Want to build a customer-centric culture? Give every team access to the same journey map, and the power to improve it. With unified CX intelligence, you don’t just react to problems. You orchestrate experiences that work better everywhere.

Challenge #4: Trust erosion and the rise of AI-influenced customer decisions

Why it’s happening

There are many benefits to how AI is shaping how people discover brands, compare options, and decide where to buy. From generative search to automated recommendations, machines now influence more CX decisions than ever.

That comes with new risks, as AI draws heavily from public signals, like reviews, social sentiment, and third-party data. If your brand’s online presence is inconsistent or outdated, trust erodes before a human ever gets involved.

Worse, poorly deployed AI (think clunky chatbots, rigid automation, or inaccessible contact center flows) can push people away when they’re looking for real help.

How to solve it

AI should strengthen human-powered customer service, not replace it. Use CX insights to ensure automation enhances, rather than undermines, your most trusted touchpoints.

Monitor and analyze your review ecosystem, social commentary, and AI search visibility to understand how your brand is being interpreted — because that perception drives conversion.

Balance AI speed with human nuance. Use your CRM system to flag high-stakes interactions for personal outreach. Keep humans in the loop where it counts. That’s how you build the kind of trust that drives customer retention, not just efficiency.

Challenge #5: Overwhelming data and underwhelming action

Why it’s happening

Enterprise CX programs generate massive volumes of data, but insight alone doesn’t move the needle. When analysis lives with a centralized team, it slows everything down. By the time insights reach customer service or operations, the moment to act has passed.

Business decisions are happening in real time, and traditional CX reporting cycles can’t keep up.

How to solve it

Break the bottleneck. HX democratizes your CX data so every team — from care and digital, to retail and frontline customer service — can access the signals that matter most to them.

Use AI-powered summaries and automation to surface themes instantly, without waiting for manual analysis.

Then, build rapid feedback loops so local teams can act independently, without waiting for quarterly reports or HQ approvals. This is how modern CX leaders shift from insight to impact faster, and at scale.

Challenge #6: Slow response and lack of real-time recovery

Why it’s happening

Today’s customer journey doesn’t pause when there’s a complaint; it keeps right on moving. When brands delay, they miss a moment of CX recovery. And worse, they lose trust.

Response time has become its own trust signal. Rio SEO’s latest local consumer behavior survey shows that 59% of consumers expect a response within 24 hours, and many expect it much sooner. If your team isn’t ready to meet that window, you’re not just behind… you’re invisible.

How to solve it

HX programs codify real-time care. Set closed-loop service standards that prioritize speed: respond, resolve, and follow up within hours, not days.

Use smart triage automation to route high-risk or high-value cases to the right team instantly. And give frontline staff the tools they need — quick-reference guides, AI summaries, and a live knowledge base — to act without waiting on escalation.

Most importantly, connect response speed to revenue. When teams understand how fast recovery protects loyalty and lifts retention, they act with urgency.

Challenge #7: Emerging channels are changing how people share experiences

Why it’s happening

The customer experience no longer lives solely in surveys or service calls. It plays out on TikTok, in AI-generated search results, and across social commerce platforms where Gen Z shops, shares, and shapes brand perception.

AI search is now a core discovery channel, and the data backs it up. Sixty percent of consumers say they click on AI-generated overviews in search. These summaries often replace your website, your listing, and even your voice.

How to solve it

Start listening where the volume’s rising. Monitor high-impact channels like TikTok, Reddit, and AI search overviews — especially for industries like retail, tech, and consumer services where the purchase journey is increasingly influenced by algorithmic interpretation.

Track how brand trust is earned (or eroded) across these spaces, and use those insights to sharpen messaging, improve digital experiences, and respond to the expectations customers are broadcasting, whether they tag you or not.

Experience is still being shared. Just not always with you.

If you want to dig in here, watch our on-demand webinar: Challenging the CX status quo: How a mature listening program drives business-wide transformation. You’ll learn how top financial services brands are evolving beyond dashboards and into action using advanced tools like AI Summarize and Text Analytics to democratize insights, break silos, and prove ROI across the enterprise.

Challenge #8: Misalignment on AI’s role in CX

Why it’s happening

In boardrooms, AI often gets sold as a silver bullet. But those looking to cut costs, fix CX, and scale instantly by automating everything will be sorely disappointed.

When automation replaces nuance, customer frustration rises, and that’s especially true for older or less tech-savvy users. Overconfident rollouts (think: unhelpful chatbots, clunky self-service flows) don’t just miss the mark; they create loyalty gaps that are hard to close.

The risk isn’t using AI. It’s assuming AI is the strategy.

How to solve it

HX positions AI as an augmentation layer, not a shortcut. The best CX programs scale empathy through intelligent routing, faster insights, and more relevant experiences created by skilled, knowledgeable people empowered by AI.

Put governance in place: validation, oversight, and ethical guardrails that ensure automation supports your brand promise.

And use Human Experience (HX) frameworks to align the C-suite. Show how trust, effort, and AI efficiency can coexist when experience stays in the driver’s seat.

AI can accelerate CX impact. But only if it listens before it acts.

Building a future-ready CX listening strategy

Most CX programs weren’t built for this pace or level of complexity. Customers move fast. Feedback comes from everywhere. And the old way of waiting for quarterly reports or post-journey surveys doesn’t cut it anymore.

To lead in 2026, listening needs to be continuous, connected, and built for action. That means capturing signals across channels, analyzing them in real time, and putting insights into the hands of people who can use them in as near to real-time as possible.

Human Experience (HX) makes this possible by connecting customer feedback with employee insight and brand perception. It’s your key to a clearer view of what’s happening, why it matters, and where to act.

AI can help scale that effort, but it needs structure. Guardrails. Human judgment. The smartest brands are using automation to speed up analysis, not replace it, and keeping trust at the center of every interaction.

Forsta brings together active listening, connected data, and real-time insight so your teams can move faster, stay aligned, and turn feedback into real outcomes.

Turning listening into competitive advantage

Customer experience isn’t a function to pass off to a team. It’s a growth engine. The brands that win will be the ones that listen better, as in faster, deeper, and more completely.

Modernizing your CX listening approach doesn’t mean collecting more data. It’s about connecting the right signals, acting on them in real time, and proving impact across the business so the data you have is put to use.

That’s how you build trust.

That’s how you drive loyalty.

And that’s how you outperform.

Ready to see how Forsta can help you get there?
Schedule a demo and see what enterprise-grade listening looks like in action.