How accessible is CX in 2026?

The 2026 edition of the Contact Centre Management Association's annual Voice of the Contact Centre Consumer 2026 research has found – for the first time in years – that more consumers in the UK feel customer service has improved than worsened. And the gap is not insignificant.

The proportion of consumers who feel customer service has improved over the past 12 months has grown to 31 percent, while the proportion that feel it has worsened has fallen to 26 percent.

However, the research found another trend: this rise in satisfaction only applies to those who are not considered vulnerable. In fact, among vulnerable consumers, things are notably worse. 

The research – supported by Zoom – defines vulnerable consumers as those who are financially vulnerable, health vulnerable, require care from others, or have recently experienced potentially destabilizing life events. Among this group: 

• At 21 percent vs 32 percent, financially vulnerable consumers are significantly less likely than non-vulnerable consumers to report that customer service has improved.
• In fact, 31 percent say service has worsened, compared with 25 percent of consumers who are not vulnerable.
• As many as 63 percent of those with care needs and 54 percent of the financially vulnerable feel their personal circumstances make them more likely to be treated unfairly by organizations.
• Vulnerable consumers are more likely to avoid online customer service channels because they find them difficult to use, with 80 percent of those with care needs and 76 percent of the health vulnerable reporting they have done so.
• And while overall self-serve failure rates are beginning to improve, vulnerable consumers continue to experience self-serve failure at higher rates than their non-vulnerable counterparts.

Commenting on the findings, Leigh Hopwood, CEO of the CCMA, said that while progress is real, it remains uneven. 

"Consumers with a vulnerability, such as those navigating financial difficulty, health challenges, significant life events or who require care, are the ones for whom the experience is least improved. The work ahead is to make sure the improvement gains we're seeing reach everyone in society."

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Accessibility and CX: More needs to be done

CX Network's annual research into the state of CX found that accessibility is important for some CX practitioners, but that much more could be done. 

In 2024, accessibility and inclusivity of contact channels made the list of top 10 investment priorities for the first time. Selected by 17 percent of respondents, it ranked in ninth place. In 2025, this response choice failed to make the top 10 most selected answers, but in 2026 it once again ranked in ninth place, selected by 11 percent of respondents. 

Encouragingly, in recent years both the EU and US have introduced new regulations to make digital customer journeys more accessible – and these apply to all businesses with operations in these jurisdictions. 

In 2026, when CX Network asked members how they adapted to these changes, 47 percent said they have taken steps to make digital customer journeys more accessible in line with new regulations, while 22 percent said they have not, and 33 percent were unsure. 

"In my experience running CX functions, accessibility loses budget battles for three reasons," says Liliana Caimacan, professor of marketing, innovation, strategy, business transformation at Hult International Business School. 

The first reason, Caimacan says, is that accessibility is regarded as a compliance activity, rather than growth driver. "Unlike AI or personalization, it rarely arrives with a tidy revenue projection attached, so when budgets tighten, it's the first thing quietly dropped from the slide deck," she explains. 

The reason is due to a visibility problem. Caimacan says the customers most affected by inaccessible journeys "are often the least likely to show up in NPS scores or complaint logs, not because they're satisfied, but because the channel itself is the barrier". Caimacan says that if the feedback loop can't see them, "the investment committee won't either".

The third reason is that too many leaders still think "accessibility" means a narrow group with permanent disabilities, rather than the much larger, fluid population of vulnerable customers. As with the CCMA's research, vulnerable customers encompass a much larger group of people. "Reframe it that way and suddenly every executive can picture themselves, or someone they love, on the wrong side of that journey," Caimacan says.

"The bigger picture is that AI has hoovered up investment attention and oxygen across the board," she explains.

"Accessibility didn't get less important; it got out-shouted by agentic AI, automation, and AI-driven personalization, which now dominate budget conversations. Whether the satisfaction gap CCMA has flagged prompts a genuine course correction or remains a quiet afterthought will depend on whether practitioners begin to connect accessibility to the much broader concept of vulnerability."

Matthew Dakeyne, the UK lead and senior director of product design and UX for 8x8, says that every time an experience is designed without accessibility in mind, customers are being told "in effect, that they weren't considered". 

"Customers don't experience accessibility as a separate category. They experience it as whether or not your service works for them. This is their life," he says. 

As Dakeyne also explains, this isn't exclusively about permanent disabilities. The CCMA's research looked at vulnerable customers, but there are ageing customers to consider also, and their unique needs in a digital-first world. With growing ageing populations there are more consumers managing reduced vision, hearing loss, or reduced dexterity and they are still expected to interact on channels that are not designed to account for their level of accessibility.

"Designing for these realities isn't designing for a minority. It's designing for the diversity of how people actually live," Dakeyne says.

For businesses in the UK, the cost of the satisfaction gap is staggering. 

According to Purple Tuesday and research from the University of Bristol, the spending power of disabled households in the UK – known as the Purple Pound – is calculated to have reached £446 billion a year. 

Businesses in the UK are estimated to forfeit around £2 billion every month by failing to meet the accessibility needs of disabled consumers. Three quarters of disabled people and their families have walked away from a business because of poor accessibility or customer service.

In the United States in the early 2020s, a spate of lawsuits were filed against organizations for operating websites that were not accessible under the American Disability Act (ADA). More than 4,600 web accessibility lawsuits were brought against companies in 2023, an increase of 500 on 2022. 

In 2023, 82 percent of lawsuits involved ecommerce sites and the remaining 18 percent covered multiple major sectors including food services, education, and healthcare. Furthermore, 25 percent of all those who were sued that year had been sued before for the same reason. In 2024 and 2025, total lawsuits exceeded 4,000 and 5,000 cases, respectively.

Overlays and accessibility widgets did not prevent legal action – instead, sites require structural redesign. 

Is this an AI issue?

The emergence of the satisfaction gap coincides with the heightened use of artificial intelligence (AI) across service suites. Research published by ArvatoConnect in June 2026, concluded that the use of AI – particularly in financial services – "risks worsening access for those who need it most".

ArvatoConnect surveyed 1,000 senior decision-makers across UK banks, insurers, fintechs, building societies and credit providers. It found "badly implemented AI" could be amplifying accessibility problems for vulnerable customers.  

The data showed a growing disconnect between how firms design AI-driven customer journeys, and the realities faced by those in need of support. Key take aways include: 

• As many as 77 percent of leaders believe their own AI strategies risk harming vulnerable customers; and 28 percent believe this risk is high.  
• Specifically, 90 percent believe AI has the potential to exacerbate bias and digital exclusion for customers who need the most support.
• Only 23 percent feel confident their approach to implementing AI poses "little or no risk". A mere six percent believe their approach poses no risk.  
• Thirty-three percent said they do not know who should be accountable for AI-driven outcomes involving vulnerable customers and 32 percent do not know how to test AI tools against vulnerable customer scenarios before deployment.
• When it comes to preventing bias in vulnerable groups, 31 percent said they are unclear on how to do this, and 31 percent do not know how to measure whether AI is improving outcomes for these customers.
• Only 31 percent sandbox test their AI systems for biased or unethical outcomes before deployment. 

Caimacan also says automation and self-service could be contributing to lower satisfaction among vulnerable customers. "And this is the part of the story I think deserves far more scrutiny than it's currently getting," she adds.

"Self-service and automation are built for the 'average' journey: predictable questions, standard language, linear decision trees, and an assumption that the customer is digitally confident and emotionally neutral. Vulnerable customers routinely break every one of those assumptions," she explains.

Caimacan says these personas could include a financially vulnerable customer juggling a payment plan and a hardship request doesn't fit neatly into a chatbot's decision tree; a health-vulnerable customer may struggle with the cognitive load of explaining their situation once; someone navigating bereavement or redundancy needs judgement and empathy, qualities current automation simulates but doesn't possess.

Caimacan says there's also a structural bias built into "how automation gets measured". She explains: "Deflection rate, average handling time, first contact resolution – these are the metrics that justify the investment, and they're optimized for the majority. A flow that works brilliantly for 80 percent of customers can create real friction for the 20 percent who need the most help, and that 20 percent skews heavily toward vulnerable."

"Here's the cruel irony: vulnerable customers are often pushed toward self-service precisely because they take longer and cost more to serve through traditional channels, yet they're the ones least equipped to navigate it alone, and most damaged when it fails them," Caimacan continues. 

This does not, however, make automation the enemy. Caimacan says that non-CX AI tools, accessibility features baked into devices, AI screen readers, voice assistants, and real-time translation, "show what's possible when accessibility is the design brief, not an afterthought". 

She clarifies: "The real issue isn't AI itself. It's that AI is deployed primarily to cut costs, with vulnerability bolted on later, if at all. The satisfaction gap CCMA has surfaced looks less like an automation problem and more like a priorities problem."

How AI can help vulnerable customers 

While the use of AI in service can alienate users who are not accounted for in journey and experience design, other applications of AI can support vulnerable customers. 

Dakeyne says: "Now, many people aren't a fan of AI, but let me tell you: it has an incredible role in accelerating accessibility adoption, faster than most organizations expected. Voice-enabled interfaces offer customers and employees an alternative to screen-based navigation – particularly valuable for users who find traditional interfaces difficult. AI-driven tooling can audit color contrast during design, check markup for screen reader compatibility, and help developers produce accessible code faster than manual review alone.

However, Dakeyne adds the technology only delivers if accessibility is embedded from the start of the product development process. "Catching issues in a final-stage audit is too late," he says. "The most effective organizations treat accessibility as a design requirement at every phase – research, build, test, release – so it becomes part of how products are made, not something applied afterwards."

Inclusivity and the workforce

Of course, consumers aren't the only people experiencing customer service and self-service. Behind the experience are service agents, experience designers and UX specialists have a legal right to an inclusive workplace. 

"Contact center agents, supervisors, and back-office teams spend entire shifts inside CX platforms. If those tools have poor contrast, limited keyboard navigation, or no screen reader support, you're not just creating a frustrating work environment, you're excluding people from your workforce entirely," Dakeyne says. 

He adds: "No one truly appreciates the ability to access and use software until it's gone. A product team that builds empathy into its design process – anticipating needs rather than waiting for someone to report a problem – creates better tools for everyone. When the fundamentals are right through the full technology stack, not just at the surface level, it reduces cognitive load for agents on long shifts and improves the consistency of the experience they deliver to customers."

According to Dakeyne, accessible employee tools lead to a more inclusive workforce, which leads to a team better equipped to understand and serve a diverse customer base. "The employee experience and the customer experience aren't separate accessibility conversations. They're the same one," he says. 

Essential actions to improve accessibility 

Despite new regulations, there remains room to improve accessibility. A year after the EU's new accessibility regulations, research from Nexer Digital found:

• 87 percent of disabled consumers are unable to complete a typical retail journey independently
• 81 percent  struggle to complete online transactions
• 38 percent  abandon purchases at checkout due to accessibility barriers
• 87 percent  would avoid a brand after experiencing accessibility issues

As outlined in this CX Network article, there are many steps organizations can take to improve the accessibility of CX across channels.

Dakeyne advises: "Audit your platforms against current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines – both the interfaces your customers use and the tools your employees work in – and make that a recurring part of your vendor evaluation, not a one-off exercise. Involve people with disabilities in your testing, because simulated assessments don't replace the insight of someone who navigates your product with assistive technology every day. 

He continues: "Look at your customer journey data and your workforce data side by side: if customers are abandoning certain channels, or if employees are showing patterns of fatigue and error in specific tools, accessibility may be a contributing factor in both. Accessibility done well doesn't feel like accommodation. It feels like technology that works for the people who use it – whichever side of the conversation they're on."

Quick links 

• How smart brands turn sporting tournaments into loyalty growth engines
• Europe ushers in machine customer era as AI agents buy coffee and concert tickets
• When compliance kills CX: How to automate with judgement

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