Page 24 - EngineerIT April May Issue 2026

CRM

The year customer service failed

When efficiency outweighs empathy, customer experience suffers.

026 may be remembered as the But as we move deeper into this year, the cracks are showing. Businesses
year the customer experience are becoming so focused on what they can do with AI that they have
2experiment went too far. Not forgotten what they should do for their customers. We risk mistaking
because technology failed us, but automation for real progress. Efficiency has value, but not if it comes at the
because we failed the technology – customer’s expense. When you optimise for containment rates instead of
and our customers in the process. resolution and outcomes, you create distance, not value.

For the past two years, boardrooms The metrics death spiral
have focused on one directive, to get The problem starts with what Forrester (2026) calls the orbit of dysfunction.
AI into the stack as quickly as possible. Companies have become measurement factories, focusing on dashboards,
The promise was irresistible. Lower KPIs, and AI containment rates – essentially, how many customers a bot
overheads, 24/7 availability, and the can keep away from a human – rather than actual customer outcomes.
ability to automate away the friction of
human interaction. When you manage a business purely by the numbers on a screen, you
lose sight of the person on the other end of the line. If your AI handles 90%
of queries but leaves that remaining 10% – the complex, emotional, and
high-stakes cases – trapped in a loop of generic responses, you haven't
improved efficiency. You’ve simply automated customer frustration. That’s
why Forrester’s 2026 predictions suggest that a third of companies will
actively harm their customer experience this year through premature or
poorly implemented self-service AI.

By Nic Laschinger, technology director, Euphoria Telecom

24 | EngineerIT April/May 2026