During 2025 most businesses thought they had brought their customer service operations into the present. The organization actively worked to eliminate trust barriers which existed between its different organizational teams.
The reason behind this decision appeared to make sense at first. Reduce costs. Increase efficiency. The system needs to distribute additional work through its automated operational system. The organization needs to operate at its current size through business activities while keeping its existing workforce numbers intact. On paper, the strategy made sense. The system revealed a major system failure which showed what actual business operations require from customer support.
Customer support is not an efficiency function. It is a trust function.
The support system gives customers peace of mind because it maintains their protection when the system experiences any breakdowns. The breakdown of confidence becomes permanent when it fails to function. Multiple organizations discovered this lesson through direct experience during the previous year.
AI-driven support tools experienced an explosive growth in adoption throughout 2025. The first point of contact now operates through chatbots instead of using conventional agents. The organization started monitoring ticket deflection because it chose to use this metric for performance evaluation. The system operated to achieve quick problem resolution, but it compromised the quality of the images. The system failed to understand human escalation as a protective mechanism because it viewed it as an unsuccessful process.
Leadership teams celebrated the improved results which they had achieved. The system achieved a reduction in Average handle time. The cost per ticket decreased. Automation rates increased.
The customers encountered an experience which differed from what they expected.
The team faced operational systems which failed to support their intricate work needs. The same messages appeared throughout all communication channels. The team faced extended delays for their essential responses although their emergency response times had improved. The final escalation process developed into an oppositional system which discarded its original team-based structure.
The assistance I got from support interactions turned into barriers which stopped my professional growth.
This disconnect between internal metrics and external reality is where trust began to break.
Organizations made their main error by operating support functions as if they were manufacturing facilities. The system enables users to enter information which generates tickets while it works to improve system performance. But customers are not units of work. The company needs to show its product support to these stakeholders because they need proof about the company's product backing.
The entire situation remains unclear because efficiency metrics do not provide enough information to understand the situation. The system fails to detect when users reach a state of frustration. The assessment tools fail to determine how confident a person is. The metrics fail to show if the customer would return to this vendor for future business needs.
Leaders who concentrate on efficiency without creating accountability systems will develop support systems which seem beneficial yet deliver no actual value. The system operates correctly within the organization, but it produces adverse effects which harm the organization's outside reputation.
Customers learned to recognize this marketing technique which they first encountered in 2025. Students studied two organizational automation methods which either concealed operational activities or used technology to improve human decision-making abilities. The distinction between them was clearly noticeable.
Automation itself is not the enemy. Poorly governed automation is.
The support incidents from last year proved to be the most damaging because they lacked any information about who should handle them. The system operated by transferring customers between multiple systems and queues and scripts while no one seemed responsible for finishing their requests.
Leadership teams underwent an AI technology deployment which made them believe they controlled all aspects of their organizational operations. The processing of tickets made it seem as though all issues had received proper attention. The groups started to experience growing confusion about who should bear responsibility for what.
The support agents who took part in the process lacked enough background information for their work. The available data became inaccessible through the AI tools which were implemented. Customers felt unheard. The emotional aspects of support which included frustration and urgency and anxiety were considered as background interference.
The loss of trust occurred because technology existed but there was no proper judgment to accompany it.
The company proves its promises through its customer support operations which function under high-pressure situations.
Marketing can establish the parameters which customers should expect from their products. Sales can create new stories. The system functions as designed with all its planned operational features. A company earns customer loyalty through its final decision which occurs when any product or service fails to operate correctly.
Organizations failed to pass this test during 2025.
The support teams operated with insufficient resources while their automated systems dominated their work and they lacked proper connections to decision-making authorities. The organization handled escalation incidents by viewing them as interruptions instead of recognizing their potential as important warning indicators. The system contained feedback loops but lacked any authority which could execute necessary actions based on these loops.
Customers noticed.
The team observed that solutions gave way to apologies at every stage of the process.
The team noticed that explanations started to replace the need for employees to take responsibility for their work.
The team members made speed their top priority which led them to disregard essential patient care during their observations.
Once customers conclude that support is designed to protect the company rather than help the customer, trust collapses quickly.
The most difficult reality about 2025 support failures becomes evident because they did not stem from operational issues. They were leadership failures.
The organization gave support work to middle managers who lacked sufficient authority to decide anything. The organization made strategic decisions about automation and tooling and staffing without consulting its front-line employees who work with customers. The team failed to recognize trust problems as fundamental system defects because they treated them as quantity-based problems.
Leadership stayed at a distance until revenue was affected.
The harm to the system had reached its peak point at that stage. Support teams were blamed. Tools were swapped. Scripts were rewritten. The system failed to resolve its fundamental problem because it optimized support operations without establishing any rules for trust management.
Companies which want to rebuild customer trust need to create new customer service systems through complete system redesign during 2026.
The support system requires accountability to serve as its base instead of developing methods which enable people to evade their duties. Technology exists to help people make decisions instead of replacing their ability to decide. The system needs escalation as its main operation instead of viewing it as a system breakdown point. Metrics must reflect confidence, not just throughput.
Executive-level support needs to become the essential element which will drive this initiative to success.
The system operates independently because it does not require students to be under constant observation. It means ownership. The organization maintains complete control of its support systems which defend customer trust and brand credibility and generate ongoing revenue.
The new approach which organizations adopt will produce unexpected outcomes when they implement it. The support system maintains trust with customers which allows them to wait through the complete process. More collaborative. More forgiving. The support volume decreases because customers trust that their problems will receive appropriate attention.
AI systems will maintain their essential function in support operations during the entire year of 2026. But its role will mature.
AI will function as an amplifier which will help agents by showing relevant context and pattern identification to achieve improved decision outcomes. The system will perform automated tasks which will free human personnel to concentrate on decision-making and emotional support and conflict resolution.
We need to stay calm in this situation. Leadership functions as the core authority which protects organizations from using performance data and financial efficiency to escape their organizational duties. The system requires users to accept some degree of operational inefficiency because this protection maintains user trust in the system.
Online interfaces enable customers to switch service providers through simple processes which makes trust stand as a fundamental business principle. It is a competitive advantage.
At International Executive Consulting, we are often engaged after support failures have already impacted customer relationships. Leadership teams recognize that a problem exists, but they cannot determine its exact nature.
What we typically find is not a tooling issue. It is a governance issue. The developers built this system to reach more users, but they did not establish any controls which would protect the system from misuse.
Our organization aims to establish support operations as a strategic business function which delivers customer experience and customer success support and participates in organizational decision-making and monitors performance metrics that generate substantial outcomes.
Because customer support is not where efficiency should dominate.
Users on the platform can build their reputation or they can choose to completely ruin their reputation.
The extent of business expansion throughout 2026 depends on the level of credibility that organizations can establish.
Author: Cyril Moreau
At International Executive Consulting, we excel in driving business transformation and organizational change - enhancing corporate performance while optimizing efficiency.