Yesterday, we had a client's operations go offline for nearly two hours. The cause? A billing bot at ThePlanet decided their 10 day old $270 balance was reason to pull 15 servers off line.
In an effort to save money, ThePlanet has increasingly moved to automated systems. In doing so, their middle management is increasingly powerless to make changes. Our enterprise sales representative was just as shocked as we were that a $100,000/year account was suspended for a 10 day old $270 balance.
Why the balance was not charged to the card on file is a mystery. Emails may have been sent but no phone call. IT solutions can certainly improve customer relations, account receivables and other business functions, but when you start making critical decisions automatically without human oversight, problems can easily arise.
Instead of disabling services, the system could have alerted the sales representative, who could then tried to work out payment, get the details of the situation and make an informed decision. In an effort to collect an overdue balance of $270, ThePlanet will likely lose a $100,000/year client.
How can you entrust your enterprise operations when critical decisions are left to poorly constructed automated processes?
Update: I was later informed that there are no bots and this must have been human error. This still raises support concerns that I would be told one thing by one staff member and another by upper management.
