It Shouldn’t Be This Hard: A Real-World Story of a Broken Customer 360
Customer 360—the single view of the truth for every customer—is the holy grail for businesses. It promises unparalleled, high-value interactions.
But as a customer, my recent experience taught me a hard lesson: just having a Customer 360 strategy isn’t enough. Getting it right is critical.
The Story: A Simple Color Change
I switched my phone’s carriers. I placed an online order for three new phones but immediately realized my mistake: I had chosen red for all of them instead of black.
I figured a quick chat would fix it.
Strike 1: I used the chat feature. The rep couldn’t see the order in the system and told me to call back the next day. The next day, they still couldn’t pull my data.
Strike 2: Two days later, a rep finally saw the order. But to help, they needed a password. I never set one. The rep was confident I should have one, I was confident I hadn’t. We were at a standstill. They politely refused to help.
The “Deadlock”: I tried to reset the PIN online.
To reset the PIN, I needed an account.
To create an account, I needed my new phone number.
To get my new phone number, I needed the phones... which hadn’t shipped.
I was trapped in a broken logic loop.
Strike 3: I asked if I could go to a physical store. “Yes,” they said. I went, showed my ID. The store rep could verify who I was but explained their system couldn’t access my web order to make a change. They also warned I wouldn’t be able to change the color once the phones arrived.
Helpless, I emailed the CEO. The ‘presidential services’ team got involved, and after several more emails, they finally resolved it by canceling the entire order, processing a return, and placing a new one.
All for a simple color change.
Where the Customer 360 Vision Broke Down
This experience was a perfect failure analysis of a system that looks good on paper but fails in practice.
System Time Lags: My order was invisible for days. Different systems clearly had different information, and my old, abandoned quotes from the past seemed to be “muddying the waters” for the reps.
Siloed Data & Tools: It was obvious that reps in different channels (chat, phone, store) were looking at different screens. The in-store rep had no access to my web order. The late-night rep (complete with roosters crowing in the background) had to escalate to a superior just to view my details.
Inconsistent Knowledge: I got a different answer from every rep. “It’s an easy change.” “We’ll have to charge you a restocking fee.” “You have to cancel the whole order.” Only one person knew the correct (and final) “cancel and re-order” process.
Asymmetric Trust: This was the most frustrating. The carrier had no problem using my SSN and personal data to run a credit check and charge my card. But to help me, I had to prove my identity with a PIN I was never given, with no other MFA options available. They trusted me to pay, but not to be helped.
Process Deadlocks: I was trapped in a ‘catch-22’ built by their own processes. It was a completely broken, automated flow with no human override.
Broken Channels: The web portal, my chosen channel, was missing crucial steps (like setting a PIN or an ‘edit’ button). The IVR’s callback feature was broken, echoing the last digit of my number in an endless loop. The customer journey was a black hole.
Takeaways for Leaders
First, the obvious: I should have double-checked my order. But mistakes happen. A good system should allow for simple fixes.
Executives: Be your own customer. You must get first-hand experience of your product. Place an order. Try to get help. Test your security. You will never see this kind of pain in a dashboard metric.
Empathy is not enough. Every rep was cordial and “empathetic.” But empathy without empowerment is useless. My goal was a color change, not a therapy session. The reps were just following a broken script.
Actively hunt for deadlocks. My problem was an edge case, but it was one I couldn’t solve myself. Your automated processes must have a human override. Don’t automate your customers into a corner.
Inconsistent tools create inconsistent experiences. If your in-store tool, web tool, and phone tool all work differently, you don’t have one company; you have three confusing ones.
Get your trust framework right. If you make it easy for a customer to give you data (SSN, credit card), you must make it just as easy for them to prove who they are to get service. A single point of failure (a PIN I never set) is not a security policy; it’s a barrier.
It just shouldn’t have been this hard.
What about you? Have you ever been trapped in a “helpful” process gone wrong?