5 Customer Service Horror Stories (and How to Avoid Them with Automation)

Ghosts, ghouls, and... growing inboxes? This Halloween, Esker hosted a frightfully fun (and frighteningly familiar) webinar: “5 Customer Service Horror Stories & How to Avoid Them.” Behind the spooky theme were five very real challenges B2B customer service, operations, and supply chain leaders face every day — and real-world examples of how companies are conquering those challenges with automation.

Today’s customer expectations are shaped by B2C giants — fast, personalized, always-on service is the new norm. But in B2B, siloed systems, talent disruptions, and manual workflows often create chaos. According to industry data, more than 57% of leaders expect customer service volumes to rise in the next two years, while only 6% of companies report full supply chain visibility.

Webinar hosts Nick Carpenter and Graham Smith led the discussion, sharing not only five common pain points, but how real companies in industries from food manufacturing to high tech are solving them with automation.

Let’s pull back the cobwebs and reveal the five most frightening CS problems — and how teams like yours are turning horror into heroism.

Horror Story #1: The Endless Inbox

"We’re drowning in customer inquiries — we can’t keep up."

Why it’s scary:
As Nick pointed out in the webinar, many teams spend more time sorting emails than solving customer problems. Without a centralized, intelligent way to route inquiries, messages pile up — and resolution times drag on.

Before Esker, Fuchs Lubricants manually processed every customer inquiry from a centralized mailbox. That meant relying on humans to determine urgency, route messages to the right teams, and track down order information. Their turnaround time? Up to 48 hours — and they had no metrics to benchmark or improve.

With Esker’s AI-powered inquiry classification and sentiment analysis, Fuchs now automatically categorizes 84% of incoming emails. Response times dropped to just six hours, and customer-facing staff are free to focus on value-adding conversations instead of inbox triage.

“To me, Esker’s AI engine is magic. It automatically classifies all our inquiries into the proper categories that we pre-customized when we set up the solution.”
— Chris Raleigh, Business Process Expert (O2C), Americas

Horror Story #2: The Vanishing Minutes

"We’re taking too long to respond to orders and questions."

Why it’s scary:
As Graham explained, responsiveness isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s a competitive differentiator. When teams are bogged down in manual data entry or stuck answering the same five questions, customers are the ones who suffer.

MCR Safety, a PPE manufacturer, was handling all orders and inquiries manually. Their average response time? Between 12–24 hours, sometimes longer. But customers now expect real-time answers — especially when safety gear is involved.

By implementing automated inquiry routing and order triage, MCR achieved a 91% order automation rate, cut data entry errors by 63%, and sped up response times to near instant. Even better? They freed up CSRs to take on proactive customer roles, resulting in higher employee satisfaction and better service delivery.

“CSRs now have more time to talk to the customers and build rapport... and other things that actually add value.”
— Deborah Buck, Director of Customer Care

Horror Story #3: The Order of Doom

"We can’t scale our order process as we grow."

Why it’s scary:
Growth is exciting — but it also exposes weaknesses. As Nick noted, many organizations hit a wall when rising order volumes outpace their capacity to manage them manually.

NVIDIA, the global tech leader, experienced explosive growth driven by demand for AI and gaming technology. But their order entry process couldn’t keep up. Manually entering even repeat orders took up to five minutes per transaction.

Using Esker’s Order Management automation, NVIDIA reduced that time to five seconds — a 98% improvement. They also cut manual effort by half, giving staff the flexibility to scale with demand, not burn out from it.

“We’ve been able to slash the processing time... and our employees feel more empowered and productive than ever.”
— Angela Garceau, Sr. Director of Business Operations

Horror Story #4: The Invisible Issue

"We don’t have visibility into what’s slowing us down."

Why it’s scary:
When things go wrong in customer service, it’s not always obvious where the breakdown occurred. As Graham emphasized, lack of visibility into processes makes it nearly impossible to improve performance or prevent future issues.

Sanofi Spain struggled with recurring problems — invoice disputes, returns, claims — but lacked the data to trace root causes. Departments were siloed and issue ownership was unclear.

By centralizing issue and claims management in Esker, Sanofi now enjoys 100% visibility across their service workflows. AI-driven tracking flags errors, matches issues to order data, and identifies systemic patterns. As a result, they’ve halved claims processing time and significantly reduced order-related errors.

“Thanks to the increased process visibility, I can quickly identify critical issues and correct any inefficiencies.”
— Javier Fernández Linares, Customer Service Manager

Horror Story #5: The Claims Catastrophe

"Our claims process is manual and chaotic."

Why it’s scary:
Claims may not be glamorous, but they’re critical to cash flow and customer trust. As Nick explained, when claims are handled manually — across spreadsheets, inboxes, and EDI files — it’s easy for important data to fall through the cracks.

GBfoods, a leader in the food and beverage industry, was managing promotional claims with disconnected tools. It was time-consuming, error-prone, and nearly impossible to track performance.

With Esker’s centralized claims platform, GBfoods now automatically captures data from claims documents, assigns categories and cost centers, and routes them to the right teams. The outcome? Claims processed 50% faster, 500 hours saved annually, and five straight years of 98%+ customer satisfaction for order delivery.

“We’ve improved the whole O2C process and enhanced our collaboration with customers.”
— Susana López, Front-Office Retail Customer Service Manager

These aren't just scary stories - These are real customer service team experiences

Each of these customer service nightmares came straight from real companies. And in every case, they didn’t need a magic wand — they needed the right tools. Automation and AI helped them overcome scale, visibility, and workload challenges that had haunted their teams for years.

Whether your team is buried in emails, overwhelmed by orders, or dreading another round of claims processing, Esker’s Customer Service automation suite is here to help you turn the lights on — and the chaos off.