Support was eating my time, so I did what everyone says to do, automated it, deflection flows, canned responses, a bot for the front line. My time freed up and I felt efficient. Then I noticed the slow rot: churn crept up, my reviews got cooler, and I'd lost the single best source of product insight I had, because talking to frustrated customers was how I used to learn what to fix. The automation was 'efficient' at the cost of the relationship and the feedback loop. I brought a human back to the...