Why Is Your AI Driving Customers Crazy? (And no, it's not hallucinations or bad prompts)

"It must be the prompts," said the CTO, frowning at the customer complaints.

"Maybe it's hallucinating," suggested the AI engineer.

"Have we tried a better LLM?" chimed in someone from the back.

Everyone had theories about why their shiny new AI assistant was driving customers up the wall. They'd tried everything.

• Fine-tuned the model
• Improved the prompts
• Added more guardrails
• Enhanced the training data

Yet somehow, their AI still managed to turn simple customer requests into corporate crisis handling events.

Have you ever watched a toddler build a bridge with blocks? One side reaches up hopefully toward the other, but there is always that awkward gap in the middle where everything could come tumbling down.

That is exactly how Maria felt looking at her company's latest AI project.

On one side, Maria felt like they had all those beautiful customer journey maps, detailed personas, and carefully documented user needs.

On the other side, they also had those pristine business architecture, value streams, and capability models. In the middle, however, there was a gulf so wide you could sail a cruise ship through it.

Meet Our Team

Maria leads the customer experience team at GlobalTech (not its real name, we are protecting the innocent here! :)). Her wall is covered with post-its showing customer emotions, journey maps, and what she calls "the real stuff", meaning the actual quotes from frustrated customers.

Down the hall sits James, the business architect, who is surrounded by meticulously crafted capability maps and value stream diagrams that would make any process engineer jump with joy.

And then there is MAX (Multifunctional AI Experience), their new AI assistant, trained on every business document known to humankind but somehow still managing to confuse customers in creative new ways.

The Great Disconnect

The breaking point came during a routine customer interaction.

Customer: "I am trying to upgrade my account but the system keeps showing an error."

MAX: "According to capability matrix C-7, account modifications require verification through process stream P-13..."

Customer: "...what?"

Maria: facepalm

James: "But that's exactly what the process says!"

That is when Maria had an idea and realized where the gap lies.

The Dawn of Understanding

"What if," Maria said during an emergency meeting, "we taught MAX to speak both languages? Customer and business?"

James looked skeptical. "Both languages?"

Maria grabbed a marker and started drawing on the whiteboard.

Left Side (Customer World)

• Desires & Demands ("I want this!")
• Influences & Needs ("Because of this...")
• Expectations ("I thought it would...")
• Perceptions ("This feels like...")
• Experiences & Emotions ("I'm frustrated because...")

Right Side (Business World)

• Vision & Strategy
• Products & Services
• Initiatives & Projects
• Brand Promise
• Capabilities & Value Streams

"See?" Maria circled both sides. "We are talking about the same thing, just in different languages!"

The Transformation

Here is what they did next.

1. The Customer-Business Rosetta Stone

• Created a translation layer between customer-speak and business-speak
• Mapped emotional journeys to process steps
• Connected customer pain points to capabilities
• Built an "emotion-aware" response framework

2. MAX's New Education Instead of just process documents, they fed MAX with

• Real customer conversations
• Emotional journey maps
• Success stories AND failure stories
• Common frustration points and their solutions

3. The Bridge-Building Framework

They created what they called "The Bridge"

• One side: Customer context (Social Context, Experiences & Emotions, Outcomes)
• Middle: Key Benefits (their "translation layer")
• Other side: Business capabilities (Value Streams, Organization, Strategy)

The Results

Same scenario, but one month later.

Customer: "I'm trying to upgrade my account but the system keeps showing an error."

MAX: "I see how frustrating this must be. I can help you upgrade your account right now. Based on your usage, I would recommend our Pro plan - it includes everything you're using now plus the features you asked about last month. Should we look at that option?"

Customer: "...that was actually helpful!"

Your Practical Takeaway Guide

Want to build your own bridge? Here is how

The Translation Layer

1. Map customer emotions to business capabilities
2. Create a glossary that connects customer terms to business terms
3. Build response templates that address both emotional and process needs
4. Identify where business capabilities directly impact customer experiences

The AI Enhancement Path

1. Train on real conversations, not just documentation
2. Include emotional context in decision trees
3. Build bridges between customer needs and business capabilities
4. Create clear escalation paths when the bridge gets shaky

The Reality Check Questions

1. Would your grandmother understand this response?
2. Does this solve the emotional AND practical need?
3. Are we using customer language or internal jargon?
4. Have we connected the capability to the actual human need?

The Key Benefits (Your Cheat Sheet)

When you build this bridge right, you

• Expand actionable information (both ways!)
• Align capabilities with actual customer needs
• Eliminate redundant efforts
• Enhance your value proposition
• Speak your customer's language
• Increase speed and agility
• Get a full view across all stakeholders

Your Turn

Look at your current projects and ask

• Are you speaking customer language or business language?
• Does your AI understand both sides of the bridge?
• Are your processes serving your capabilities or your customers?

Share your bridge-building stories below!

P.S. MAX is still learning, but now instead of quoting process documents, it quotes customer success stories. I think we can count that as a win! ??

#GenerativeAI #CustomerExperience #CIO #CEO #CTO #CMO #CDO #CAIO #BusinessArchitecture #Innovation

All opinions are my own and not those of my employer.