One problem I've observed first hand is that the head of customer service is measured on (among other things) the amount of money being spent on customer servic

One problem I've observed first hand is that the head of customer service is measured on (among other things) the amount of money being spent on customer service (and other closely-related metrics like average contacts per order, agent time spent per customer, etc.). These executives have no direct control over the product, so they can't actually solve the problems that are causing people to contact customer service. For example, they aren't in charge of the warehouses, so if for example a ton of people are calling in because they are getting the wrong item in the orders, the CS leader is getting dinged in their metrics but can't address the root cause. This leads them to do things like those being discussed, where they take measures to reduce contacts without solving any real problems. Maybe if "customer satisfaction" were a more important metric than "CS budget," this would be better, but customer satisfaction is very hard to actually measure (how many of us even bother filling out surveys, and of those who do, how many are honest?). I guess a lot of this boils down to "big company syndrome" where the customer experience is controlled by a series of interlocking factors, but the humans who control those factors are siloed and disincentivized to work together to improve things. My experience is that in most of these situations, people actually do have good intentions overall. You wouldn't believe the ways I've heard CS executives twist themselves into knots to convince people that outsourced or automated customer service is actually better for the customer (and I think they truly did believe it, or at least had fooled themselves into believing it). But the end result is bad for everyone.