Streamlined or Sabotaged - Technology instead of a human touch

If you’ve ever tried to call a local credit union and been trapped in a phone tree that won’t let you talk to a human, you know the feeling: somewhere, a spreadsheet looks fantastic while your patience dies a little. That was the spark for this week’s episode — and this post.

A friend called his hometown credit union with a simple question about re-strapping a loan onto a paid-off car. Straightforward. Local. Relationship-y. Instead he got an IVR labyrinth and a chatbot that kept forgetting it had already said “How can we help?” ten times in a row. Ten minutes later, he finally reached a human — and had to explain why the experience felt like betrayal from a “member-owned” institution.

We expect that from mega-banks and airlines. We don’t expect it from the place that sponsors Little League and knows your barber. That gap between expectation and reality? That’s process debt made visible.

Here’s the uncomfortable part: none of this happened by accident. Someone made a choice. A salesperson pitched a phone system that moved cost from a labor budget to an IT budget. A leader accepted the pitch because the dashboard promised “deflections,” “average handling time,” and “call routing efficiency.” The spreadsheet won; the relationship lost. And because the human signals were hidden behind technology, nobody saw the churn until it showed up in the financials — lagging indicators, not leading ones.

This is how process debt builds: technology gets installed on top of a previously healthy process without revisiting the purpose of that process. The organization optimizes around the wrong metric. And the team adapts — because humans are ridiculously adaptable — by tolerating a worse experience and assuming it’s “just how it is now.”

It doesn’t have to be.

Before you install tech in a customer path, ask: what’s the job of this process?If the job is to create trust and remove friction for a member making a decision, then keep a direct human lane open. Tech should triage, surface context, and speed up handoffs — not trap a loyal member to improve a “deflection” number.

Practical reset ideas (no buzzwords):

• Offer a “talk to a person” option within 60 seconds on calls and chat. Put it first, not last.

• Route money-decision questions (loans, fees, fraud, closings) to a specialist immediately; measure time-to-human and first-conversation resolution.

• Review a handful of real calls/chats every week with Ops + IT. If it sounds cold or circular, it is — fix that flow first.

• Price decisions with total cost of ownership: include lost referrals, churn, and brand drag when you compare IVR savings to staffed service.

Also, make the signal loud again. Invite IT and Ops to a monthly “Friction Review” where you listen to real calls and read real chat logs together. If something hurts, say it. Telepathy isn’t a feedback channel. The fastest way to unwind bad tech decisions is to put the experience back in the room with the people who can change it.

If you run a community-based business and your metrics say you’re winning while your members say you’re distant, believe your members. The spreadsheet can’t feel loyalty. Your people can.

Process Debt Truth: When you optimize for deflection, you deflect revenue — because the number you moved wasn’t the relationship you needed.