Financial Services CX Has Changed: How Avaya Infinity Delivers Journey Continuity

Financial services customer experience is in the middle of a structural shift: from transactional utility to intelligent advocacy, where customers expect their bank or investment firm to behave less like a queue and more like a trusted partner.

At the same time, consumer expectations have become brutally simple: be fast, be personal, and let me move across channels without starting over.

Avaya Infinity is designed for exactly that reality: a connection platform that unifies journeys across voice and digital, activates real-time intelligence, and uses memory and context to keep every interaction continuous and human.

The financial CX problem is continuity, not “more channels.”

Consumers do not experience your organization as a set of channels. They experience outcomes. They want the journey to stay connected as they move from app to chat to phone to a human.

Recent Avaya Connect Consumer Research  makes the stakes clear:

• 96% want seamless channel switching without repeating information.
• 83% expect agents (human or AI) to know their history.
• 92% expect real-time personalization,n and 86% want companies to remember preferences.
  

That combination is hard for most financial institutions because the experience is often built on fragmented systems: separate telephony, separate digital support, separate CRM views, separate analytics, separate knowledge. Fragmentation produces re-authentication, repetition, slow handoffs, and inconsistent outcomes.

Avaya Infinity’s core value in financial services is journey continuity at enterprise scale: it connects interactions across time and channels so the experience continues instead of resetting.

Voice still matters, and in finance, it matters more

Even in a digitally saturated world, customers still gravitate to real-time voice when the issue is consequential or emotionally charged.

The research reveals the phone is the preferred channel for 41% of consumers, well ahead of chat and email.

And when customers have a problem, 83% say it is very important to speak with a human agent.

Avaya Infinity is explicitly built to “honor customer preferences while flexibly orchestrating across all channels,” including voice, and to treat voice as an evolving channel that should carry the same intelligence and context as digital interactions.

For financial services, that matters because the hardest moments are often voice moments:

• fraud disputes
• account access lockouts
• wire transfer concerns
• loan or mortgage conversations
• market volatility reassurance
• high net worth advisory escalation

These moments require speed, empathy, and context.

Speed is now a trust signal, not an efficiency metric

Consumers equate speed with respect. They do not separate “time in queue” from brand trust.

One of the clearest research findings: 60% of consumers expect to speak with a live agent in six minutes or less before frustration sets in, or they give up.

Avaya Infinity maps directly to what financial institutions need to do about it: Prioritize proactive routing using AI and real-time signals.

• eliminate repeat questions by transferring the full context instantly
• keep the experience human while reducing friction

In finance, speed is also risk reduction: faster authentication, faster fraud containment, faster escalation, faster resolution.

Churn is often silent, which means you need real-time experience sensing

The research highlights a dangerous dynamic: 74% of consumers have stopped doing business with a company at least once without ever complaining.

That means relying on surveys or post-interaction feedback is too late. You need to detect friction while the relationship is still recoverable.

Avaya Infinity is positioned as a platform that can:

• Detect rising frustration across voice and digital with real-time sentiment and friction detection
• trigger proactive interventions, including escalations and reroutes
• provide journey-level visibility that connects interactions across time and channels

For financial services, this is how you reduce attrition in high-value segments and improve retention without waiting for churn to show up in lagging metrics.

AI in financial services is shifting from assistance to action, so CX architecture must evolve.

Financial CX leaders are navigating the rise of agentic AI, in which AI systems move from reactive responses to proactive participation, capable of acting on a customer’s behalf and managing end-to-end workflows.

The near-term reality is that customer service bots are widely used today and are a major future focus (usage and priority levels are already high).

The implication is that for today’s financial customers, you need a Connection Center that delivers Tandem Care (the effective collaboration of human and AI agents):  

• Your CX stack has to support human + AI orchestration, not “bots vs agents.”
• You need a platform where AI can resolve quickly when appropriate, and smoothly escalate with full context when empathy, judgment, or regulatory nuance is required.
  

This matters because customers hold two expectations at once:

• 56% are satisfied with an AI assistant if it resolves the issue quickly
• and 83% still want a human connection when issues arise
  

Avaya Infinity is built around orchestration across people and intelligent systems as the delivery mechanism for modern CX.

What this means for banks, credit unions, and investment firms

When you translate the research signals into a practical financial services playbook, the requirements look like this:

1) Build continuity across voice, chat, email, and apps

Because customers demand movement without reset, and voice remains central.

2) Reduce time-to-trust with intelligent routing and instant context transfer

Because most consumers have a short wait threshold, and every delay erodes relationship quality.

3) Detect friction and silent churn in the moment

Because most churn never shows up as a complaint.

4) Blend AI efficiency with human judgment at the right moments

Because AI satisfaction is conditional, high-stakes financial decisions still demand human conversations.

5) Operationalize trust with AI governance practices

Because explainability, risk, and safety are now part of the customer experience.

Avaya Infinity is positioned to support all five requirements as a unified platform that shifts organizations from fragmented, reactive support to orchestrated, proactive engagement with context-rich continuity.

The financial CX standard has changed.

Financial services are entering an era where customer experience is judged by continuity, speed, personalization, and trust. The consumer signals show that loyalty is earned in connected moments, often under time pressure, and frequently across voice and digital in the same journey.

Avaya Infinity aligns to that reality by helping financial institutions unify fragmented experiences, activate intelligence across channels, and maintain the context that makes service feel prepared, personal, and trustworthy.

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Statistics sourced from Avaya Connected Consumer Research conducted in January 2026.  

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is Avaya Infinity?
Avaya Infinity is a connection platform designed to unify fragmented customer experiences across channels, time, and agents, using real-time intelligence, personalization, and context to strengthen customer relationships.

Why does Avaya Infinity matter for financial services?
Financial customers expect fast help, channel switching without repetition, and experiences that remember their history and preferences. Infinity supports these expectations through journey continuity, intelligent routing, and real-time experience sensing. Does voice still matter in customer experience?
Yes. Phone is the preferred channel for contacting a business for 41% of consumers, and 83% say speaking with a human is very important when issues arise.

How quickly do customers expect to reach a live agent?
60% expect to speak with a live agent within six minutes or less before frustration sets in.

Why is “memory” important in financial CX?
Customers expect continuity: 83% expect agents to know their history, and 86% want companies to remember their preferences.

Definitions 

• Journey continuity: seamless channel switching without repeating information.
• Context transfer: passing customer history and details instantly to the next agent or system.
• Real-time personalization: adapting experiences in real time based on customer signals and preferences.
  

AI TRiSM: AI trust, risk, and security management for ethical, transparent, secure AI in regulated environments.