Luís Armando Valente

We live in an age with more channels for communication between companies and customers than ever before. Phone lines, email, online forms, chats, virtual assistants and social networks are meant to make contact easier and improve customer experience.

Paradoxically, reaching someone with the authority to listen, decide and solve a problem can seem harder than ever.

This is particularly noticeable in some multinationals, major retail chains and telecommunications businesses. Customers may move through several layers of support without learning who is accountable for resolving their case.

Have we created organisations that manage contacts efficiently but do not always solve problems effectively?

When customer service becomes a maze

A customer calls and explains a problem. They are transferred to another department, where they repeat the story. They receive a reference number, a standard response and often instructions to wait or contact yet another team.

When they ask to speak with a manager, director or another person authorised to make a decision, they frequently encounter a barrier that is difficult to overcome.

This is not about expecting a chief executive or managing director to handle every complaint personally. In many organisations, that would be incompatible with their scale and complexity.

The requirement is more basic: when normal procedures fail, there should be an identifiable person with the authority and ability to take ownership of the problem until it is resolved.

Repeated referrals cannot replace accountability.

The gap between promises and reality

Companies devote considerable resources to advertising, reputation, customer experience and brand development.

They speak of being close to customers, building trust, transparency, excellence and consumer focus.

But what does it mean to put customers at the centre of strategy when, at the very moment they need help, they face a structure that is almost impossible to navigate?

Genuine customer focus is not demonstrated only through communication campaigns or satisfaction surveys.

It is demonstrated above all by the way an organisation responds when something goes wrong.

Those are the moments when corporate values stop being statements and become observable behaviours.

Leadership also means accountability

My experience in multinational organisations has taught me that delegation is essential to effective management.

However, delegating tasks and decision-making authority does not mean giving up leadership accountability.

An effective hierarchy gives teams autonomy while maintaining clear escalation mechanisms for problems beyond the decision-making authority of first-line services.

Without those mechanisms, a troubling situation can arise: everyone follows procedures, every case is correctly referred onwards, and yet nobody actually resolves the problem.

Who, then, is accountable for the final outcome?

Responsibility cannot simply dissolve between departments, computer systems and internal regulations.

Technology should connect, not distance us

Digitalisation and artificial intelligence offer meaningful opportunities to improve service, reduce response times and simplify processes.

But technology should not become a barrier designed to prevent human contact.

A chatbot can answer frequent questions. A form can organise enquiries. An automated system can direct complaints to the relevant team.

None of these tools eliminates the need for a person to take responsibility when a problem calls for judgement, careful examination or management intervention.

Operational efficiency should also be assessed through problems genuinely resolved, not merely the number of contacts processed.

So who is ultimately accountable?

Perhaps the fundamental question is not who is to blame, but how some organisational structures allow accountability to become diffuse.

A company is not truly customer-centred simply because it describes itself that way.

It becomes customer-centred by listening, responding, acknowledging mistakes, honouring commitments and resolving problems transparently.

Leadership quality can also be measured by the willingness to accept responsibility when things do not go as planned.

Perhaps it is time for organisations to ask themselves a straightforward but uncomfortable question:

If a customer cannot reach someone capable of resolving their problem, is the company really prepared to listen?