Why Are Trusted Brands Turning Uncustomer-Conscious?
There’s a silent shift happening in the way once-beloved brands are treating their customers. I noticed it recently with an e-commerce provider I’ve trusted for more than 15 years.
You know the drill, right?
You place an order.
You get a text.
You get your package delivered.
No drama.
No confusion.
It’s the kind of seamless experience that turns customers into loyalists. That’s been my relationship with a popular e-commerce platform for about 15 years, until last week.
Here goes the story.
I ordered two books, got a delivery notification on the 26th of April while I was away, and came home to nothing at my doorstep. What followed wasn’t just a case of lost books but a crash course in how even the most reliable customer experiences can slowly become unrecognizable.
The Long Winding Road to Customer Support
I registered a complaint. The system promptly informed me that a resolution would be provided by the 29th of April.
I appreciated the clarity.
On the morning of the 29th, I received a WhatsApp text that stated:
Our customer support team has completed its investigation of your query regarding your order number #####. Please contact us to get your resolution.
There was a “Contact Us” button at the bottom.
Clicking on that button led me to the brand’s app and a frustrating spiral of dead ends.
There was no resolution update. It had a chatbot with predefined options that didn’t cover my situation. I tried every menu option, hoping to find a way to speak to a human.
The “Talk to Us” feature was not helpful either. Eventually, after clicking through what felt like every possible branch of a decision tree, I stumbled onto a “Request a callback” option.
If you ask me today, I won’t be able to tell you how I found it.
The callback eventually happened, and to their credit, the issue was resolved.
The bigger question was not the lost books but the effort it took to reach customer support.
When Did We Start Making Customers Work So Hard?
Where I once could speak to a human with a few taps, I now found myself stuck in a maze of menus, auto-responses, and impersonal prompts. They stood out not just for logistics but for their human-centered service. And that’s exactly what seems to be slipping away.
It was as if the system was designed to delay resolution, not deliver it.
This isn’t an isolated incident, either. It’s becoming a pattern across industries and geographies. Where customer support used to be a valued pillar, now it’s buried under layers of automation, impersonal messaging, and frustrating UI flows.
All in the name of efficiency.
In trying to save time and costs, companies are wasting their customers’ time. And worse, they’re burning goodwill.
The Shift from Customer-Centric to System-Centric
I was part of a panel discussion a few months ago, and most people on the panel said that contact center automation is the way to go and there is no other way to keep your customer support costs low.
When I asked about the customer experience, I was told that customers would have to learn how to interact with automation. That’s the only choice they have.
I was worried but didn’t think much then. But that’s precisely what is happening today.
What’s happening is a shift in mindset, and it is more than poor design.
We used to build service journeys around the customer’s needs. Now, they’re built around the company’s convenience.
Automated systems, self-serve menus, and chatbots can be helpful, but only when they assist, not obstruct.
In the example I quoted, they not only removed human access, they buried the resolution paths in multiple clicks and offered only generic choices.
They did not just automate their support, but they’ve dehumanized their support.
I will give you another example of how brands treat customers. This isn’t directly related to customer support, but it is about customer onboarding.
A friend of mine wanted to subscribe to a term insurance policy. She reached out to an agent who listened to her needs and guided her on the plans.
The documents she was asked to furnish included the following:
PAN card, Aadhar card, six months’ bank statement, a canceled cheque leaf, a photograph, last two years’ IT returns, a photograph along with the advisor, and a copy of the degree certificate.
Once all of these were submitted, they sent a proposal number and a link to make the payment.
Once you make the payment, they do a video verification through a third-party agency to ensure that you are real and alive (this verification is the most impersonal of the experiences).
Once you are done with the video verification, they send you an OTP with a validity of 15 minutes. You will have to enter the OTP to confirm the verification.
Now, you get a congratulations message and they would schedule a medical examination before the policy can be approved.
How many people would understand and go through this process?
It is such a taxing experience. Here, she was fully guided by the advisor. I can imagine the plight of advisors and their ability to sign up more clients with this tedious process.
It makes me wonder:
Why does everything have to be so complex, and why should customers have to do the heavy lifting of getting themselves onboarded or requesting a service or support?
So, What’s Gone Wrong?
Let me break this down for you:
- The biggest culprit is over-automation, which replaces human touchpoints with bots and templates.
- Building service flows that reflect internal structures rather than customer logic.
- No easy way to reach a human when the automated system doesn’t help.
- The path to resolution changes constantly, with no clarity or guidance.
The saddest part is that organizations don’t even realize how far they’ve drifted from their customers. They’re still tracking “issues resolved” as opposed to “customers frustrated.”
How Can You Fix This?
It is not rocket science, and it is fairly simple. However, it does require a shift in thinking.
- Remove every additional click, every ambiguous menu, and every loop back to the same chatbot option. Make the customer’s path to help obvious and intuitive.
- Not everyone wants to speak to an agent right away. But when they want to, make it easy for them to reach seamlessly.
- Don’t just track when a ticket is closed. Track how long it took, how many channels the customer used, and whether they gave up halfway.
- Walk through your complaint resolution process as a user. If it takes more than two or three steps to reach help, you’ve got work to do.
As customers, we don’t expect perfection. We understand that packages get lost, payments fail, and delays happen.
However, when we reach for help, we expect to be treated well and not just as case numbers or dropdown options.
The real test of a brand isn’t in how it performs when everything goes right. It’s how they respond when something goes wrong.
The successful companies make these moments effortless. The ones that don’t turn simple issues into frustrating experiences.
It’s time for brands to stop thinking like systems and start thinking like customers.