Businesses often pour millions into a particular channel—maybe it’s the call centre, maybe it’s an app, maybe it’s a custom-built web portal. It’s seen as strategic, scalable, and sophisticated.
But here’s the problem: just because you love it, doesn’t mean your customers do.
Channel Bias: The Hidden Cost of Internal Thinking
Too many organisations design channels around internal convenience, not customer preference. They double down on what they think will be efficient, not what customers find easy, intuitive, or even tolerable.
This leads to what we call channel bias—a heavy reliance on one channel that costs a lot to run but delivers very little value in customer satisfaction, resolution time, or loyalty.
Common Warning Signs
- Rising costs in one channel with no improvement in outcomes
- Low customer satisfaction scores in “preferred” channels
- Customers starting journeys in one place, but abandoning or switching channels midstream
- Repeat contacts because issues aren’t resolved in the channel you’ve invested in
Experience Should Drive Channel Strategy
Smart businesses use customer experience (CX) data to shape channel decisions. This includes:
- Journey mapping: Understanding where and why customers drop off
- VoC (Voice of Customer): Capturing qualitative feedback on frustration points
- Channel preference tracking: Identifying which platforms customers actually trust
When you prioritise ease, control, and consistency, your channel strategy becomes experience-led—not infrastructure-led. And that changes everything.
The Hard Truth
You might need to retire a shiny, expensive system. Or scale back a channel that’s been sold to the board as “the future.” Because if it isn’t delivering for customers, it isn’t delivering at all.
Instead, invest in what works. That might be live chat. That might be email. It might even be old-fashioned phone calls. The best channel is the one that solves problems with the least friction.
Conclusion
Want to cut costs and increase satisfaction at the same time? Start by asking your customers which channel they hate the most—and then ask yourself why you’re still funding it.