Published: September 3, 2026
AI is everywhere.
It writes emails. It summarizes meetings. It analyzes data. It answers questions. And, increasingly, it answers the phone when you need help.
At CAVU ERP, we’re certainly not anti-AI. In fact, we believe artificial intelligence has tremendous potential when it’s thoughtfully applied.
But replacing our technical support team with AI?
No, thank you.
From a purely financial standpoint, we could probably make a compelling argument for it. AI doesn’t take lunch breaks. It doesn’t call in sick. It can theoretically handle multiple conversations simultaneously, 24 hours a day. And over time, it could potentially save our company thousands of dollars in support costs.
There’s just one problem.
Saving money isn’t particularly impressive if you frustrate your clients in the process.
I was reminded of that recently during an interaction with a nationally known alarm company.
I had a simple question. Really simple. The kind of question that an experienced human representative probably could have answered in less than two minutes.
Instead, I spent approximately 25 minutes communicating with AI.
After those 25 minutes, the AI apparently reached the same conclusion I had reached considerably earlier: perhaps I needed to speak with a person.
Progress!
Then came another four-minute wait for a human representative.
Once connected, I had to confirm my identity. Twice.
I was then assured by a message that I shouldn’t worry because they were going to help me — which, after nearly half an hour, was admittedly comforting.
And then?
I had to explain the question all over again.
What should have been a two-minute interaction became an exercise in patience, repetition and wondering whether I actually needed the answer badly enough to continue.
That may increasingly be the way of the world.
It is not the way of CAVU.
When our clients call CAVU ERP Technical Support during normal support hours, our goal is for them to reach knowledgeable human beings who understand our software, understand their businesses and — equally important — understand that sometimes a client simply wants to explain - to another human - what is happening.
That costs us more.
We’re okay with that.
Because there is another cost that doesn’t always appear quite so neatly on a financial statement: the cost of a frustrated client.
That doesn’t mean AI has no role in customer service.
Used selectively, it can be extremely valuable. AI could help provide information after normal business hours, direct someone to an appropriate resource, identify relevant documentation or assist with routine questions where speed and convenience truly improve the experience.
The key word is assist.
There is an enormous difference between using technology to make your people more effective and using technology to make your people disappear.
At CAVU, we believe software companies sometimes forget something fairly basic:
Our clients aren’t software installations.
They’re people running businesses.
They have trucks waiting to leave the yard. Customers standing at the counter. Orders that need to ship. Invoices that need to be processed. Employees waiting for answers.
When something isn’t working, they don’t necessarily want to have a philosophical discussion with a chatbot.
Sometimes they just want someone to pick up the phone and say:
“Tell me what’s happening. We’ll figure it out.”
AI will undoubtedly become an increasingly important part of business — including ours.
But as long as capable, knowledgeable human interaction produces happier clients, we believe it is worth paying for.
Technology should make customer service better.
It shouldn’t become an obstacle clients have to overcome before customer service begins.