Duplicate automation systems undermine orchestration efforts

The orchestration paradox

Contact center leaders investing in orchestration platforms to coordinate customer interactions across channels are discovering an uncomfortable truth: the technology exposes problems that have accumulated for years rather than solving them immediately.

Enterprises have built automation environments through incremental adoption—IVR systems handling one set of interactions, chatbots another, RPA workflows automating back-office tasks, and AI assistants added later. Different business units deploy different tools with minimal coordination. By the time organizations pursue orchestration, multiple systems often handle identical customer requests in conflicting ways.

"This leaves IVRs, chatbots, RPA workflows, and AI assistants independently handling similar interaction types," said Oru Mohiuddin, research director at IDC, as reported by No Jitter.

Why it matters

Orchestration platforms promise seamless customer experiences, but they cannot compensate for fragmented workflows and disconnected data. Organizations that layer orchestration atop duplicate systems preserve the complexity they intended to eliminate—while adding another integration point. The real work happens before orchestration: identifying overlaps, retiring redundant tools, and establishing unified data layers.

How duplication accumulates

Most organizations did not deliberately create fragmented environments. Individual systems solved specific business problems at specific moments. "For the most part, at the time it was implemented, each of those systems was solving a critical issue, but no one planned for them to eventually all overlap," said Alex Levin, co-founder and CEO of Regal.

The pattern reflects organizational structure. "Companies build automation the way they're organized," explained Aleks Bass, chief product and technology officer at Typeform. "Marketing adds tools for lead gen, sales for follow-up, support adds chatbots, operations adds workflow automation. Each decision is reasonable on its own."

Customers experience these disconnected systems as a single journey. When information is trapped within individual applications, customers repeat information, restart conversations, and navigate handoffs that feel disjointed. "The customer ends up being the integration layer the business never built," Bass said.

The friction points

Overlapping automation creates inconsistent routing decisions, fragmented journeys, duplicate tickets, and operational complexity. Different systems may resolve identical issues differently or direct customers down conflicting paths.

"When tools overlap without shared context, every system invents its own version of the customer, and they disagree," Bass noted.

Levin pointed to situations where customers resolve an issue through one channel only to receive follow-up communications about the same problem from another system. "They don't care that one system didn't know what the other did. To them, the company just looks disorganized."

The rationalization checklist

Successful orchestration begins with examining customer journeys rather than technology platforms. Bass recommends mapping the complete experience from acquisition through retention, identifying where customers provide the same information multiple times and where context disappears between systems.

Data analysis should examine transfer patterns, escalation points, repeat contacts, and situations where multiple systems handle identical customer intent. Frontline employees can reveal workarounds and inefficiencies invisible in reporting tools.

Once overlaps are identified, organizations must evaluate which systems deliver value based on business impact, performance, functional overlap, integration capabilities, maintenance requirements, and scalability. Some technologies warrant modernization; others are candidates for consolidation or retirement.

"The mistake I see most is treating orchestration as a way to manage complexity instead of reducing it," Bass said. "Another layer on top of fragmented systems hides the mess, it doesn't clear it."

The objective should be creating fewer systems that share data, support common workflows, and contribute to consistent customer experiences—not maintaining multiple platforms performing similar functions independently.

"The strongest companies are the ones willing to simplify: fewer handoffs, fewer redundant workflows, a smaller set of connected systems that work exceptionally well together," Bass concluded.

These findings were first reported by Nathan Eddy for No Jitter.