Editorial
The Gist
- Customer service is undervalued. Support is still treated as a cost center, when it should be the foundation of loyalty and retention.
- Fewer calls isn’t the goal. Companies that celebrate reduced interactions miss the real value of more conversations that build trust.
- Proactive care drives growth. Engaging before issues escalate creates positive micro-moments and lasting loyalty.
- AI enables scale with empathy. Used wisely, AI augments human agents, personalizes outreach and makes more engagement sustainable.
- Support is the growth engine. When integrated across the customer journey, service becomes the ultimate driver of retention and advocacy.
Companies spend millions of dollars to win new customers, only to ghost them post-purchase. The obsession with deflection, shrinking support teams and automating human connection is a costly contradiction that undermines the very loyalty brands need to grow.
Table of Contents
- Customer Service Has a PR Problem
- Resist the 'Fewer Calls' Fallacy
- Proactive Customer Care Builds Loyalty
- AI: A Fork in the Road
- Breaking Silos to Build Customer Trust
Customer Service Has a PR Problem
Let’s face it: contacting support is often a customer’s last resort. Experience has taught them to anticipate long wait times, disconnected channels and ineffective interactions. What they don’t expect? Efficiency. Empathy. Ease.
That’s a problem.
From Transactions to Journeys
The fix isn’t a new script or a better chatbot. It’s a mindset shift: viewing support not as a series of transactions, but as a connected journey. Every interaction is an opportunity to reinforce loyalty, extend lifetime value and deepen customer trust. That means driving more engagements, not fewer, and expanding support beyond break/fix moments to any point where the customer’s experience hangs in the balance.
Related Article: Building Customer Trust — Statistics in the US for 2025
Resist the 'Fewer Calls' Fallacy
When it comes to CX, prevailing wisdom has long been to reduce engagement volume and handle time. Many companies view these as levers to cut operational costs, promoting instead tools like automation and self-service resources—and when they do have to engage, they want the shortest possible handle times.
But they miss the bigger picture. Customers who feel unheard or rushed rarely forget it, and churn is the long-term consequence.
Retention Over Acquisition
We all know it costs more to acquire a customer than to retain one. In fact, the long held standard that acquisition is five times more expensive than retention feels extremely conservative today. Improving retention is a far more effective growth strategy, yet many organizations still celebrate fewer calls as a measure of success.
Here’s the counterintuitive truth: the goal shouldn’t be fewer calls at all. The companies that win will be the ones who invite more interactions. Every additional conversation is a chance to understand needs, build trust and reinforce value.
Related Article: Customer Acquisition Makes You Famous. Customer Retention Makes Money
Proactive Customer Care Builds Loyalty
If more engagement is the goal, then waiting around for customers to reach out isn’t enough. Proactive care means creating opportunities to connect before frustrations escalate: checking in, sharing tips to help customers get more from their purchases or sending reminders that prevent common problems before they occur.
The Growth Impact of Proactive Care
The business case is compelling. Recent Gartner research found that growth organizations are more than 50% more likely than non-growth companies to have calculated the relationship between improved customer satisfaction and business impact. Conversely, no-growth companies were more than twice as likely to be unsure or unable to determine the business impact of customer satisfaction.
Proactive engagement is a key driver of that growth, because it prevents avoidable issues while creating positive “micro-moments” of connection. Customers don’t just remember the times you fixed something that was broken—they remember the times you helped them unlock more value, unprompted.
Done right, proactive care reframes support from a safety net to a loyalty engine. It builds a cadence of trust and interaction that acquisition campaigns can’t replicate.
AI: A Fork in the Road
Of course, pursuing more engagement raises a fair question: how do you scale it without ballooning cost? This is where AI changes the equation.
When used to augment human expertise rather than replace it, AI can take on the heavy lifting—instantly surfacing the right resources, automating repetitive tasks and capturing context so your experts can focus on what only humans can do: listening, empathizing and building trust.
Customer Support Shifts
This table outlines the evolution from traditional, reactive support toward proactive, growth-oriented customer care.
| Approach | Definition | Business Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Reactive Support | Customers reach out as a last resort when problems occur | Frustration builds, interactions feel transactional, and retention suffers |
| Fewer Calls Fallacy | Companies measure success by reduced engagement volume | Short-term cost savings but long-term churn from lack of trust and connection |
| Proactive Care | Brands connect before issues escalate and create positive micro-moments | Builds loyalty, prevents churn and deepens customer relationships |
| AI Augmentation | AI supports human agents with context, automation and personalization | Scales engagement efficiently without sacrificing empathy |
| Support As Growth Engine | Service is integrated into the customer journey as a value driver | Retention, advocacy and long-term revenue growth |
Scaling Care With AI
AI can also make proactive care scalable. Imagine a system that not only flags when a customer is likely to churn, but also recommends a personalized outreach, whether it’s a quick tip, a check-in or an offer that helps them rediscover value. Rather than waiting for issues to arise, AI enables teams to engage customers earlier, more intelligently, and more personally.
The result is a model where companies can both increase customer interactions and make them more efficient—a balance that can only be achieved by reimagining AI as an enabler of growth, not just a lever for cost reduction.
Related Article: Predictive AI in Customer Experience: What Works Today
Breaking Silos to Build Customer Trust
Support is not an isolated function; it’s the connective tissue of the customer journey. From onboarding to renewal, every service interaction influences whether a customer sees value or disengages. Even the best products break or frustrate sometimes. But handled well, those breakdowns can become breakthrough moments—opportunities to strengthen trust rather than erode it.
Webinar
Oct
16
Agentic AI Playbook: Real-World Customer Service Use Cases You Can Deploy Now
Boost self-service by 30% and slash call volume by 63% with agentic AI.
Register
Webinar
Oct
22
Beyond Storage: Smarter Content, Bigger Impact with DAM + AI
Discover how the DAM + AI duo makes content smarter, stronger and more accessible.
Register
Webinar
Nov
6
Fix the Content Bottleneck: Build a Better WebOps Strategy
Content stalled? Dev overloaded? You’re not the only one. Learn how streamlined WebOps bridges the publishing gap.
Register
Webinar
On demand
Call Spoofing Trends Financial Institutions Can't Afford to Ignore
Don't let robocalls sabotage your customer relationships. Learn how to secure your voice channel.
Watch Now
Webinar
On demand
CMS Briefing: A Live Look at What’s Next in AI-Driven Platforms
Learn how leading organizations are using AI‑driven tools to publish faster, personalize smarter and stay secure.
Watch Now
Webinar
On demand
Ready or Not: How Data-First Organizations Are Unlocking Agentforce Potential
Learn how to cut through the noise, activate Agentforce and build a Salesforce AI strategy that actually delivers.
Watch Now
It probably goes without saying, you cannot make meaningful progress if you have rigorous silos in place creating seams in your customer experience. Customers want more support from the companies they rely on, though they expect to receive less and less as AI becomes more integrated. Teams must work seamlessly together to deliver an experience worthy of their customers’ lifetime value.
In the end, support isn’t a cost center. It’s the engine of retention, advocacy and growth. The businesses that thrive won’t be the ones who deflect the most calls. They’ll be the ones who answer them—and invite more.
Learn how you can join our contributor community.
