Dive Brief:
- Brands are sending too many messages, overwhelming consumers and causing them to miss critical communication, according to CSG’s 2026 State of the Customer Experience Report released last month.
- The majority of consumers — 70% — say they don’t care what brands say anymore, as they struggle to separate the signal from the noise. Three in five consumers have deleted important messages, such as bills or fraud alerts, because they thought they were marketing or spam. Nearly two-thirds of consumers worry they’ll miss critical correspondence due to excessive communication.
- Excessive outreach can also hurt the bottom line: More than one-third of consumers have stopped buying from a brand because of it. “Consumer overwhelm isn’t just a feeling. It’s a business risk,” Katie Costanzo, president of customer experience at CSG, said in a news release. “Your customers aren’t asking for more touchpoints. They want an easy, unified experience that shows the brand understands them.”
Dive Insight:
Consumers are increasingly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of messages they receive via email, text, phone, social media and other channels.
Brands may think they’re responding to a customer desire. After all, many consumers enjoy social media shopping despite an onslaught of communication and are more likely to purchase after a personalized interaction with a brand. But CX leaders shouldn’t ignore consumers’ frustrations and concerns, as consumer overwhelm can weaken brand loyalty long term.
Consumers value helpful messages the most, according to the survey. But more than two-thirds said they needed to trust a brand before they felt comfortable receiving personalized messages.
CX leaders must also be careful in how they implement personalization, as it creates a negative experience for more than half of consumers, according to a Gartner survey in June.
Consumers who reported personalized interactions were twice as likely to feel overwhelmed by the amount of information they received and more than three times as likely to regret purchasing a product or service, according to Gartner.
