Move from reactive to proactive customer service

Customer experience is entering the sci-fi age: knowing and understanding customers on an individual level, providing personalized service, and dedicated moments. All of this is becoming possible thanks to technological innovation. And as it shifts, we’re moving beyond the age of reactive service, where customer satisfaction was measured by stale, bi-annual surveys. We’re entering an era of proactive, predictive customer care. Companies’ missions today should be to transform every interaction into a moment of loyalty and growth, a goal we are working to achieve through our latest in-house innovation: the Customer Experience Index, or CXI.

While many companies talk about focusing on customer experience, we wanted to move beyond buzzwords and create a framework that allows for proactive, real-time management of our customer relationships. Traditional methods of measuring customer satisfaction, like the bi-annual surveys mentioned earlier, often fall short. They only provide a snapshot in time, leaving significant gaps in our understanding of daily customer sentiment and needs. To truly drive change and speak to our customers on their current standing, we needed something more—a tool that could provide real-time, actionable insights at a massive scale.

UNDERSTAND THE EXPERIENCE WITHOUT ASKING THE QUESTION

This is where the Customer Experience Index comes in. It is an AI-powered, real-time measurement framework that transforms raw customer sentiment into predictive, actionable insights, which in turn works to enhance loyalty, reduce churn, and drive business growth. It’s not just a metric; it’s a predictive engine built on over 200 AI/machine learning models and generative AI insights. The CXI evaluates a wide range of factors, including customer behavior, network performance, service interactions, and even external market signals like mergers and acquisitions. With a 98% accuracy rate compared to traditional NPS surveys, CXI gives us near instant, account-level insights that allow us to anticipate and address issues before they escalate for our business customers.

The ability of CXI to understand the experience without asking the question, is a game changer. It enables us to shift from a reactive to a proactive customer experience model. For example, our service teams no longer just react to inbound service calls. Instead, an AI-powered tool called “Right to Sell,” fed by CXI data, provides real-time guidance to agents during a service call. A green light might signal that a customer is satisfied and an agent can suggest a new product or service, while a red light indicates the customer is frustrated, and the agent should focus on resolving their issue and building brand loyalty. This allows our service team to transition from a cost center to a value-driving part of the business. This shift also frees up our dedicated sales teams to focus on more strategic selling opportunities.

This approach’s impact is already clear. In the first half of 2025 alone, around 20% of our accounts saw an improvement in their CXI scores. These customers are more likely to stay with us, buy more from us, and even become evangelists of our services. These results demonstrate how we are translating customer insights into tangible business outcomes.

PERSONALIZATION MATTERS

Beyond the numbers, the CXI represents a deeper, more empathetic understanding of our customers’ journeys. By integrating conversational intelligence that analyzes interactions across all communication channels (with the customer opting in)—including phone calls, chat, and email—we can score customer sentiment and track our commitments in real time. This allows our specialized teams to proactively engage with customers, sometimes even before the customer is aware of the problem, and provide a higher level of care.

Ultimately, our ability to deliver winning customer experiences is tied to this level of personalization. By understanding our customers both rationally and emotionally, we can anticipate their needs, offer proactive solutions, and provide a seamless, intuitive experience across all touchpoints. Our work with CXI is not just about tracking satisfaction; it’s about actively shaping a future where every interaction strengthens customer loyalty and fuels growth, propelling us toward our customer goals and solidifying our position as a leader in customer experience.

Iris Meijer is chief product and marketing officer of Verizon Business.