I recently signed up with a well-known, niche, science-based nutrition company. I forget her name for the moment.
- Very strong brand.
- Credible expertise.
- Polished front-end.
Everything looks excellent.
Until I needed to do something fairly simple:
Cancel my subscription
- Require repeated emails.
- AI responses didn’t resolve it.
- Pleasant tone but ineffectual.
Gaps in support, no real resolution.
What struck me was not just the lack of a human being.
It was the way a system, clearly designed to maximise business efficiency, created the opposite experience for me as a customer requiring:
More effort. More time. A feeling of not being valued.
That is the real issue.
Because customer service is not just about process, it should be a highly valued relationship.
It’s an emotional experience.
When things go wrong, people want to be listened to, understood, and feel like their issues are being resolved. Not a “your call matters to us.” But that it actually matters.
Without that, even a polite AI interaction can leave someone feeling powerless, unimportant, and frustrated.
Human beings are not binary, neither are their situations.
That is why emotional intelligence matters so much in service design.
That is much harder to automate than many businesses realise.
EQ matters!
P.S Do you mind AI chatbots, or would you prefer to pay a little extra for human support?