Is Staffing Eroding Customer Experience?

U.S. workers’ sense of accountability for customer experience exceeds their confidence in their organizations’ ability to deliver on customer promises as staffing levels decline.

In Q3 2025, 43% of U.S. employees strongly agreed they feel great responsibility for the customer experience — the quality of products/services their customers receive. At the same time, 23% strongly agreed their organization always delivers on the promises it makes to customers. This imbalance has remained largely unchanged in recent years, even as employees’ sense of responsibility for customers rebounded from its 2024 dip.

Employee accountability for customer outcomes has edged up over the past several years. After falling from 42% in 2023 to 38% in 2024, the share of employees who strongly agreed they feel great responsibility for customer quality rose again in 2025.

While the percentage of U.S. workers who strongly agreed they feel great responsibility for customer outcomes dipped across the board in 2024, the decline was most pronounced among frontline and production or manufacturing workers, younger employees, individual contributors (as opposed to managers and leaders), and those working fully on-site. These groups saw drops of five to nine percentage points, compared with two- to three-point declines among workers in other roles or age groups.

Confidence in Organizations Delivering to Customers Remains Low

Despite strong personal accountability, only 23% of workers strongly agreed their organization always delivers the promises it makes to customers. This figure has remained steady over the past four years. Leaders are 10 points more likely than managers and individual contributors to express confidence in the organization’s ability to deliver to customers, though only about three in 10 leaders strongly agree.

National benchmarks suggest a similar pattern of stalled progress. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), which tracks U.S. customer satisfaction across industries on a 0-100 scale, has remained largely flat in the past year, hovering around 76-77. This long-running, cross-industry benchmark — based on surveys of hundreds of thousands of U.S. consumers and widely used as a macroeconomic indicator — suggests that broader satisfaction with products and services has not materially improved despite investments in experience and service delivery.

Staffing Remains the Top Barrier

When asked to identify the greatest barrier to delivering exceptional products and services to customers, employees most often cited staffing shortages. More than one-third (37%) named staffing as the top obstacle, far exceeding training (16%), tools or equipment (9%), and unclear standards (8%). This perception holds across levels, with leaders most likely to identify staffing as the top barrier to delivering to customers.

Staffing has ranked as the most frequently cited barrier in prior years, meaning workforce capacity planning challenges persist despite shifts in business conditions. Both leaders and individual contributors continued to point to staffing levels as the primary constraint on delivering exceptional products and services. This pattern reflects an ongoing structural capacity issue rather than a temporary disruption.

Workforce Reductions Intensify Pressure

Staffing concerns have intensified alongside continued workforce reductions. Nearly one in four U.S. employees (23%) reported their organization is reducing the size of its workforce, up 12 points since early 2023. Among those reporting layoffs, 65% said individual contributors who work directly with customers were most affected.

As headcount shrinks, internal pressure grows. Nearly two-thirds of employees say they have been asked to take on additional responsibilities in the past three months. More than half report reorganizations or team restructurings and a growing share — up 23 points from 2024 — cite budget reductions.

When employees were asked, “In the past three months, has your organization done any of the following?”:

• 63% say employees have been asked to take on additional responsibilities
• 58% report a reorganization or team restructuring
• 52% report budget reductions

When executive and senior leaders were asked, “Which of the following have you experienced at work in the past three months?”:

• 46% say they have observed stress and frustration among employees
• 34% report reduced budgets
• 32% cite a lack of communication from leadership about new priorities
• 29% say difficulty balancing people management and individual contributor responsibilities
• 18% report that the number of employees they manage has increased

These pressures have real implications for customer outcomes. Workers who frequently experience employee burnout are far less likely to believe their organization delivers on its customer promises, reinforcing the link between internal strain and external performance.

Staffing Challenges More Acute in Public Sector

Healthcare and public sector employees are more likely than those in other industries to report staffing as a barrier to delivering promises to customers. Staffing strain is especially pronounced in healthcare, government and education, where employees are also more likely to report workforce reductions.

Industries differ not only in the severity of staffing strain but in whether those pressures are easing or worsening. Higher education and government face the greatest risk of worsening capacity constraints, combining high staffing strain with net workforce contraction. By contrast, healthcare, hospitality and retail report high staffing pressure alongside expanding headcount.

Customer Experience and Employee Engagement Are Closely Linked

Employees’ confidence in customer delivery closely aligns with employee engagement. Engaged employees are far more likely to feel responsible for customer quality and to believe their organization delivers its promises.

Nearly seven in 10 engaged employees (69%) strongly agree they feel responsible for product and service quality, compared with 31% of those who are not engaged or are actively disengaged who said the same. Similarly, 45% of engaged employees strongly agreed that their organization delivers on customer promises, compared with 12% of those who are not engaged or actively disengaged who said the same.

The relationship between engagement and customer delivery likely works in both directions. When employees feel clear about expectations, supported in their work and able to contribute meaningfully, they serve customers more effectively. Consistent delivery, in turn, reinforces pride, purpose and engagement at work.

Employees who are extremely satisfied with their workplace strongly agreed they do what they do best every day, feel their opinions count and know what is expected of them are three to four times as likely to express confidence in organizational delivery compared with those who do not agree.

Together, these findings suggest that confidence in customer delivery reflects more than optimism or perception alone. It signals whether employees feel sufficiently supported to focus their efforts where they matter most to customers.

Bottom Line

Many U.S. workers feel responsible for delivering quality products and services to customers. Yet many lack confidence that their organizations can support that responsibility.

Staffing sits at the center of this gap. Employees at all levels consistently identify insufficient staffing as the top barrier to delivering for customers — a challenge compounded by ongoing headcount reductions, reorganizations and expanded workloads. When employees are asked to do more with fewer people, even high levels of commitment and accountability cannot sustain consistent delivery.

Engagement helps explain how these internal pressures affect customer outcomes. Engaged employees worldwide are more likely to feel clear about expectations, experience less burnout and believe their organization can deliver on its promises. Successful delivery, in turn, reinforces engagement. But engagement alone cannot offset structural constraints such as persistent understaffing or misaligned capacity.

In a constrained work environment, protecting customer experience requires more than asking employees to care. Organizations must align expectations with staffing realities, clarifying priorities and enabling employees to focus where they can make the greatest difference for customers. When leaders address staffing barriers and support employees closest to customers, accountability translates into consistent delivery and customers will likely feel the difference.

Learn more about how the Gallup Panel works. View complete question responses and trends (PDF download).