Shoppers Up In Arms About Products, Services At Never-Before-Seen Levels: REPORT

A record number of American consumers are reporting increasing frustration with products and services, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Friday.

Seventy-seven percent of U.S. customers reported facing a product or service problem over the past year, marking a new record high, the WSJ reported, citing data from the most recent National Customer Rage Survey, which was conducted in February. When the same study was last conducted in 2023, 74% of consumers responded the same way, while 66% reported the same during the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020, the outlet reported.

Just 32% of respondents told researchers they had experienced a product or service problem in 1976, when a similar version of the study was first conducted, the WSJ reported. Of those surveyed in 2025, 68% said their recent experiences with complaining to companies required high or very high amounts of effort, an increase from 65% in 2023, the study found, the outlet reported.

“I can order dental floss and it’ll be at my doorstep in 30 minutes, but when it comes to problem-handling, it’s still an effortful, frustrating, emotionally stressful [experience],” Scott Broetzmann, the president and chief executive of Customer Care Measurement & Consulting, which conducts the National Customer Rage Survey with the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, told the WSJ.

A Customer Experience and Communications Consumer Insights survey conducted in August and released in November by Broadridge Financial Solutions similarly found that 71% of Americans and Canadians think most businesses need to optimize their customer experience, marking a new record high, according to the WSJ.

In June, Forrester Research found that views of the customer experience among Americans and Canadians have decreased for the fourth consecutive year, with brands’ average score dropping to a new record low of 68.3 out of 100, the WSJ reported. Moreover, just 7% of the 469 brands Forrester studied boosted their average score by a statistically significant amount from 2024 in the U.S. and Canada, while 25% of brands’ scores declined, the outlet reported.

“Like the proverbial frog that doesn’t feel the water becoming increasingly hotter, many North American brands are inching into more treacherous positions with their customers’ loyalty,” Forrester Principal Analyst Pete Jacques noted in the report.

Additionally, a record 186.9 million American customers are expected to shop online and in-store between Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday this year, per a National Retail Federation (NRF) and Prosper Insights & Analytics survey published on Nov. 20.

While some recent surveys have shown many Americans are concerned over affordability and the overall state of the economy under President Donald Trump’s leadership, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker on Nov. 23 that he expects U.S. shoppers to begin seeing lower prices on some items within weeks.