Zero customer service
It’s a bold statement, and a great place to start a debate among service leaders, service teams, and customers alike. It brings out views from all perspectives. Let’s take a look at the subject — which actually isn’t a new concept.
For decades, companies treated customer service as a cost centre: built around call queues, scripted responses, and rigid escalation paths. The dominant model assumed that problems were inevitable and the goal was to resolve them efficiently. Success was measured in average handle time, closure rates, deflection performance, and of course the cost to serve.
Today, that mindset is outdated. Yet many organisations still use metrics that have been around forever — leaders aren’t sure where those metrics originated, and the metrics themselves provide diminishing insight. Consumers, meanwhile, are more informed and clearer on their expectations, rather than passively accepting whatever service experience they’re handed.
In their 2011 book The Best Service is No Service, Bill Price and David Jaffe offered a game-changing approach, showing how organisations were using the wrong metrics to measure customer service. Customer service, they argued, is only needed when something has already gone wrong — and eliminating the need for service is the best way to satisfy customers. While 2011 feels like a long time ago, they were onto something. And what they said still stands.
Today, customers want seamless digital experiences and expect frictionless journeys. They don’t want better apologies; they want fewer reasons to make contact. In a world where everyone seems busy all the time, and organisations are focused on reducing or deflecting contact, the idea that the best customer service is no customer service continues to gather momentum. A win-win, surely?
If only it were that simple. Recent research shows that for all the digital channels that exist, and the belief that “people don’t want to speak to people,” being able to call an organisation still ranks high in importance for consumers. This can be to talk through a complex situation in detail, to get reassurance, or simply to hear it from a human. In these instances, service is a necessity for the customer and adds genuine value.
So it’s not really about zero customer service. It’s about scenario-based service. There are some moments — driven by customer demand, organisational benefit, or both — where service is the best option, and other moments where it’s a sign that something earlier in the journey hasn’t worked.
The idea of zero customer service doesn’t mean ignoring customers. It means designing products, policies, and processes so intuitive and reliable that support is rarely needed. Clear onboarding. Proactive communication. Transparent pricing. Self-serve tools that eliminate confusion before it becomes a ticket. By shifting focus from reactive support to preventive design, companies reduce costs, increase loyalty, and build trust. When nothing goes wrong, service becomes invisible.
But there’s a paradox worth acknowledging here. Service that’s invisible can also be service that’s unvalued. If a customer has never had a reason to interact with you — never had a problem solved, never had a question answered, never had a person on the other end of a call show up well — they may also have no felt sense of why they should stay. At the next renewal, the next switching opportunity, the next conversation with a friend asking for recommendations, your service simply isn’t part of their thinking. The very success of designing the operation away has taken away the moments where loyalty would have been built.
This is why scenario-based service matters. The goal isn’t to hide service — it’s to design products and journeys that don’t need service for the routine, while ensuring that the moments where service does show up are moments that visibly add value. A car insurance customer who never has a claim experiences nothing of your service operation across years of cover; the moment a claim does happen, the experience either reinforces every reason to renew or undermines them. Energy customers go years without contacting their supplier; one misbilled bill or one query about a tariff change is the entire emotional impression they’ll carry into the next switching decision.
When nothing goes wrong, service should be invisible. When something does go wrong — or when a customer reaches for service deliberately — that moment should be unmistakably good.
The art of great service design, as with many things, is getting the right balance. Removing unnecessary effort for both customer and advisor. Not feeling the need to offer every channel all the time. Demonstrating real value in the moments when you do directly interact with your customers.
If you’d like to talk through what this might look like in your business, I’m easy to find. mark@soothconsulting.xyz.