Here’s how to automate customer support; but should you?

“Can’t we just get AI to do that”?

This is a question that has echoed through boardrooms and budget meetings for at least the past five years. And on the surface, it makes a lot of sense. Automation has seemingly taken over the world – replacing human interaction wherever possible and promising a raft of cost savings and efficiencies. At least, that’s what the people selling automation systems would have you believe. And for businesses under pressure to do more with less, the appeal is obvious.

But while automation can support customer service, it was never designed to replace it – at least not entirely. The moment you remove human connection from the equation, especially in high-stakes or emotionally charged moments, the experience begins to break down.

The most effective customer support today doesn’t come from bots alone. It comes from a strategic blend of automation and human expertise, especially when that human element is delivered by an outsourced partner who understands the nuances of emotive, brand-aligned CX. In this article we’re going to explore the pros and cons of automating certain parts of your customer support system; what you should get AI to do and what you should leave to the humans; and how Ventrica can help.

What automation can do for customer support

Of course, we aren’t saying that automation doesn’t have a place, because it absolutely does. When it’s implemented properly, it can transform how support operations run behind the scenes, from streamlining simple customer interactions to reducing the administrative workload of your team, the benefits really are game-changing.

Take a tool such as Zendesk, for example – its chatbots and automated workflows can quickly handle repetitive (and frankly, low-skilled) tasks like tracking orders, checking delivery status, password resets, frequently asked questions, etc. AI-driven systems can also route customers to the right department, collect essential details before an agent even gets involved, and even send post-interaction surveys without any real manual input.

This has a huge impact on the business side, because you get faster response times, fewer inbound tickets for your team and much lower cost-to-serve metrics across high-volume queries. These efficiencies can make a huge difference when budgets are tight or support teams are stretched thin.

However, this all comes with a caveat. Automation is best at handling volume, and not complexity. It is a tool for efficiency, not empathy. This is a crucial distinction, because if you try to automate empathy, you risk turning potential meaningful and emotive customer experiences into frustrating exchanges, and this can cost you far more in lost loyalty than it saves you in operational efficiency.

What automation can’t do (at least not yet)

Automation can answer questions. It can route calls, and it can take away burdensome administrative tasks from your customer service agents so they can focus on more impactful work.

What automation can’t do is understand people. It can’t understand emotions, it can’t understand context, and it certainly can’t understand when a customer doesn’t just want a resolution; they want to be heard, reassured and treated like a human. When a customer reaches out to you with a delayed delivery, a billing issue, or even just a complaint about a faulty product, they aren’t just looking for a resolution. They are looking for accountability, reassurance or even just someone to acknowledge their frustration. These are human needs, not just technical problems.

No matter how advanced it gets, AI still struggles with the nuance of tone, context and emotion. It struggles to detect when a customer is on the verge of churn, or when a complaint really is just a cry for help. It definitely can’t defuse a tense situation with empathy and judgement – you still need a trained human for this. This matters more than most businesses realise, and it matters more than whatever saving on operational costs that an AI tool might give you. While it may seem intangible, poorly handled interactions can damage a brand faster than a slow response ever could. It isn’t just about getting people in and out the door as quickly as possible and addressing their query. It’s about connecting with people and providing them with true emotive CX, so they come back again and again.

Now, this applies to humans as well; because poorly handled interactions are going to cost you dearly whether they come from an AI or a human. This is why it’s so important to train your customer service agents properly, or even better, partner with an outsourced customer experience provider such as Ventrica who fully understands and appreciates how important it is to provide good, emotive CX to your customers.

Why full automation isn’t the shortcut you think it is

If you’re not convinced as to the importance of a human approach supported by automation, this next section should make you think. For all the promises of efficiency, fully (or even partially) automating your customer service isn’t as hands-off as you may first think.

Automation platforms, particularly those powered by AI, require ongoing training and input. Bots need to be trained; workflows need to be monitored and optimised. Edge cases – the kinds of things that humans can navigate effortlessly with a bit of thinking outside the box – need to be identified and escalated correctly, because if an AI bot has been trained on something specific, it won’t know what to do. Every scenario that isn’t accounted for properly creates a new point of failure.

Then, there’s the technical debt – which is how we refer to the hidden cost of rushed or incomplete system setups – and it builds quickly when automations aren’t properly scoped or maintained. Systems don’t just plug and play – they require robust integrations, from providers with robust SLAs and procedures for when things go wrong (which they will).

Of course, if you’re using something like Zendesk and HubSpot, there are off-the-shelf integrations that will get you set up with a basic level of functionality, but a basic integration does not always equal an intelligent integration, and customising what specific data syncs, when it syncs, how it’s displayed, and what triggers automation is where complexity and technical debt creep in. And above all, a human still needs to own and be accountable for the ongoing performance of your automated workflows.

In reality, set-and-forget doesn’t exist, and what can seem like a shortcut (particularly integration of systems) often becomes an ongoing project, requiring technical oversight, customer experience management and testing to avoid frustrating and costly mistakes. And when automations misfire, it’s not just a CX issue, but a brand reputation and revenue issue.

So, automation can absolutely help you do more. But if you’re hoping to do it all, you will probably end up spending more time fixing issues than you would have spent getting it right with people in the first place.

Human-to-human (H2H) support is still absolutely crucial

As business owners, we have to accept that automation has its limits. This is not conjecture – this is a statement of fact. Automation cannot do everything. And of course, we now need to find a way of filling the gap between what automation can do and what it can’t.

The answer to this question is the same as it’s always been – people.

More specifically, trained, emotionally intelligent, level-headed customer support agents who understand not just what your customer is asking, but how they feel when they ask it. We call this “emotive CX” and it’s what we live and breathe here at Ventrica.

Human-to-human customer service remains (and will do for the foreseeable future) one of the most powerful levers for brand loyalty and long-term customer value. When someone has a complex issue, is upset or needs reassurance, the ability for them to speak to someone who listens, empathises and takes ownership and accountability can take a negative moment and turn it into a loyalty-building experience.

And the data out there proves this. A 2023 report from SurveyMonkey showed that NPS is on average 72 points higher for human service agents than it is for customer service chatbots. A PwC study revealed that 59% of consumers feel that companies have lost touch with the human element of customer experience, and that 17% of consumers would stop doing business with a brand after just one bad interaction. These are not just soft signals – they are hard commercial realities. Brands that treat empathy as a “nice-to-have” and try to over-automate everything are bleeding loyalty, trust and ultimately are leaving money on the table.

Automation might keep your queue moving and handle simple queries to your customer’s satisfaction, but it can’t show genuine understanding, adapt to nuanced emotions or represent your brand the way a person can. This is why the future of automation is not fully automated, but hybrid. It isn’t about choosing one or the other, but about leveraging both to play to their strengths.

In practice, that could look like this:

• A Zendesk chatbot quickly gathers basic information and triages the query
• A Salesforce workflow routes the ticket to the right team based on language, urgency or topic.
• When the situation calls for nuance; a refund negotiation, a complaint, a moment of frustration, a human steps in to take control.

This kind of blended model delivers operational efficiency without sacrificing customer empathy. It’s scalable, but it’s still sensitive. But the kicker is that getting this right requires expertise. Designing workflows, managing escalation paths and training agents to know when to let automation run, and when to override it, takes operational maturity, and that’s exactly where an experienced emotive CX partner like Ventrica comes in.

Why outsourcing your customer support function to Ventrica beats out over-automating

Building a blended, high-performing support model sounds great, until you try to do it all in-house. Running customer service strategy internally means that someone has to own every piece; staffing, training, tech stack, reporting, QA, escalation logic, planning and channel strategy. Adding automation on top of this means you’re managing both people and machines, and the complex choreography between them.

This is where outsourcing to a skilled partner like Ventrica could take your customer support experience to the next level. Instead of stretching your internal team too thin or relying too heavily on automation, you gain access to:

• Skilled, emotionally-intelligent agents trained to deliver Ventrica’s signature brand of emotive CX – where empathy, active listening and tone are core to every interaction
• An established CX operation built for scale, capable of flexing across time zones, languages and customer segments without compromising on quality or consistency
• Technical integration expertise that ensures your automation stack – whether it’s Zendesk, Freshdesk, HubSpot, Salesforce, Odoo, etc – actually works as part of a cohesive customer journey, not just a disparate collection of tools
• Strategic service design that puts people at the heart of the process – using automation for speed and routing and human agents for the moments that matter most
• A partner who understands the stakes, not just SLAs and KPIs, but the emotional impact of every conversation, and how that translates into loyalty, retention and brand perception.

Final thoughts – automate intelligently, but connect emotionally

Automation is powerful, but it isn’t a shortcut to great customer service. It’s a tool, not a replacement. The businesses that get it right aren’t the ones automating everything, but the ones using automation to enhance, streamline and scale the right parts of their customer experience, while letting humans handle the rest. When a customer is frustrated, confused or just needs to be heard, a bot simply won’t do.

That’s why the smartest investment isn’t in more tech, but in the right balance between tech and people. And it’s why outsourcing support to a partner like Ventrica isn’t just about efficiency, it’s about protecting your brand, reputation and your customer relationships.

Think of it like this – automation provides speed and scalability. Humans deliver connection and context. Together they can create experiences that are not only efficient, but meaningful.

If you’re exploring how to build a smarter, more scalable support model – one that blends automation with truly human customer care – we’d love to help.

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